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A Story of the Allegheny Mountains 


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JULIUS CHAMBERS 

Author of "On a margin” 


PHILADELPHIA 

PORTER & COATES 

1886 


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LOVERS FOUR 


AND 

MAIDENS FIVE 


A STORY OF THE ALLEGHENY MOUNTAINS 



JULIUS CHAMBERS 

Author of “ On a Margin ” 



PHILADELPHIA 
PORTER & COATES 


PZ3 , 
.C'i54l- 


TWENTY-FIFTH THOUSAND. 
Copyrighted, 1886, 

BY 

JULIUS CHAMBERS. 



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Allen , Lane $ Scott , Printer a, Philadelphia . 


CONTENTS. 


FRONTISPIECE BY J. B. SWORD, N. A. 


CHAPTER I. pack 

NEW SWEETNESS IN THE MOUNTAIN AIR, 5 

Initial— A Realization of Fairy-Land. 

CHAPTER II. 

THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH, 14 

Initial — At the Cedar Lodge. 

CHAPTER III. 

TRIAL BY SINGLE COMBAT, 23 

Initial— Looking toward Summitville. 

CHAPTER IV. 

CONQUEST OF THE ALLEGHENIES, 32 

Initial — The Ship of the Mountains. 

CHAPTER V. 

A woman’s vengeance, 44 

Initial — In the Great Hall. 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE STORY OF A PENANCE, 53 

Initial — A contrast: Moscow — Loretto; a palace and a hut. 


IV 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER VII. PAGE 

AMONG THE RHODODENDRONS, 59 

Initial— The Portage Road east of the Summit. . 

Illustration— Rhododendron Park, by F. Cresson Schell. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

A VERY HAPPY MAN, 75 

Initial — The Cresson Springs. 

CHAPTER IX. 

LUCK IN A HORSESHOE, 92 

Initial — The Spectral Train. 

CHAPTER X. 

EBENSBURG AND ITS PEOPLE, IOI 

Initial— Cambria County Court-House. 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE CYMRIC AGONISTES, 1 12 

Initial — A Maple Grove Spring. 

CHAPTER XII. 

0 

THE LOST TOWN OF THE HILLS, 123 

Initial— All that is left of Beulah. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

OUR PILGRIMAGE TO THE SHRINE, I37 

Initial— The Forest King. 

. 

» - 

APPENDICES, 153 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


CHAPTER I. 

NEW SWEETNESS IN THE MOUNTAIN AIR. 

RESSON it shall be. 
There were four of 
us, all young men 
and friends of years’ 
standing, who passed 
our summer vacation 
of a month together. 
As a social organiza- 
tion we were not ex- 
clusive; butthe mem- 
bership was full. We 
had never seriously 
contemplated the en- 
largement of our charmed circle. We all had per- 
sonal ambitions; each of us knew the others’ 
dreams and had pledged himself times without 



6 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


number to further them, even to the extent of the 
utmost self-sacrifice. Ah ! we believed ourselves 
schooled in experience; but how very little of 
human nature we knew after all. And how much 
we learned that red-letter month at Cresson ! 

This happy intimacy had begun during the time 
we had striven together to gain the rudiments of 
an alleged education. We hoped these ties would 
endure and survive the struggle of life. Fortu- 
nately, our paths were not widely apart, for two of 
us lived in New York and two in Philadelphia, — 
quite near enough to see each other often and to 
dine in company at least once every winter. 

To me the discretion of fixing the site for the 
summer “ meet ” had been left. As I knew the 
Von Scollengers had already gone to Cresson for 
the season, and as Tailback, of Philadelphia, and 
I were both on their list of accepted callers, the 
die was cast. Beyond an occasional “flyer” in 
stocks, not one among us had ever dallied with 
the Philosophy of Chance. We might have ad- 
mitted a belief in the potent influence of Fate; 
but we never expected to be simultaneously con- 
fronted with it in the forms of five of the most 
charming girls in America. How could we fore- 
see that these delightful creatures would leave 


NEW SWEETNESS IN THE MOUNTAIN AIR. 7 

homes that loved them, at several different points 
of the compass, on separate days and trains, bound 
for the one place we had chosen for our visit? It 
was impossible for us to expect such a series of 
coincidences. And we did not. 

Charley Tailback, of Philadelphia, who had more 
time on his hands than the rest of us, wanted to 
drive up in his coach. So he started a week 
ahead, and met us at the Cresson station when 
we alighted from one of the buffet cars of the 
Pennsylvania Railroad. 

We had no sooner ensconced ourselves snugly 
in the rooms engaged in advance at the Mount- 
ain House, than Tailback and I sent our cards to 
the Von Scollengers, mother and two daughters. 
They welcomed us in one of the cozy reception- 
rooms, and the gentle matron took us to her heart 
at once. Now, for two of us to know the Von 
Scollengers meant the same advantages for all. 
Ours was a quadrilateral, all sides of which were 
equal. The advantages of such an acquaintance, 
we all admitted, could not be overestimated. To 
know the Von Scollengers, mother and daughters, 
was an education in itself. It insured an acquaint- 
ance with all the best people at any summer resort 
in America honored by their presence. Therefore 


8 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


it is not self-praise to say that at the end of the 
first week we were widely introduced. The Von 
Scollengers did their whole duty in our behalf. 

The two sisters, noticeably dissimilar in dress 
and personal tastes, were equally charming as 
companions. The elder, Audette, was nicknamed 
“ Odd ” by her sister, though she had no eccen- 
tricities of character or manner whatever. The 
younger, Arline, was vivacious, at times, to a de- 
gree little less than boisterous. She was the pret- 
tier, the saucier, and, in my opinion, the cleverer 
of the two girls; but she lacked the quiet dig- 
nity and self-possession of Audette. Arline was 
fresh from a Massachusetts seminary, and made her 
first practical application of the rules of prosody 
taught there by christening a tall, stately girl from 
Albany, Iamba, because of a peculiarity in her 
gait. Arline declared this an accurate designation, 
and seriously insisted that one of the girl’s feet was 
shorter than the other. With her right foot she 
stepped out quickly enough, but the left was 
drawn after her awkwardly. Audette said it was 
affectation, and that the young lady drawled in her 
speech much the same; but good Mamma Von 
Scollenger decided the case to be one of inherited 
mannerism. With a mother’s sympathies ex- 


NEW SWEETNESS IN THE MOUNTAIN AIR. 


cited, she cautioned her younger daughter not to 
make such remarks ; but I knew, as a fact, that 
Arline kept the record of her opinions of Miss 
Bessie Puhnryne under the iambic signs ^ - 

Much as I disliked to hear such an estimable 
young woman “ guyed” by her acquaintances, I 
realized more and more every hour that I knew 
very little of this world, and much less about 
women. I was ungallant enough to argue with 
my conscience that the right of free criticism 
was guaranteed to women, as well as men, by the 
Constitution of our common country. 

One cloudy afternoon we all went down to the 
railroad station to meet Mrs. Von Scollenger’s 
niece, Miss Maud Tennyson, of Chicago, who with 
her mother, Mrs. Percy Tennyson, wife of a mer- 
chant prince of that city, came to join the party. 
Miss Tennyson had made the grand tour of Eu- 
rope, and knew more of the world’s ways than her 
cousins, but it was a wholly different kind of knowl- 
edge. The next day, Miss Gwynn Meredith, of 
Cincinnati, another cousin of the Von Scollenger 
girls, on their father’s side, dropped into the group 
— not from the skies, but from the Western Ex- 
press. She was accompanied by her maid, a re- 
served, discreet, middle-aged person. I remem- 


IO LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

bered Miss Meredith the instant I saw her face, 
and was delighted, for I had met the young lady 
the winter before at Mrs. Von Scollenger’s home 
in New York. She visited her cousins : Miss Ten- 
nyson did not, so far as I knew. 

The names of all the girls pleased me, though I 
couldn’t help thinking occasionally that they had 
been most arbitrarily distributed. “ Oddie ” was 
the type of dignity and grace; Arline, of roman- 
ticism ; Maud, of good health ; and Gwynn, of re- 
serve and gentleness. 

But the contrasts among us were quite as strik- 
ing. The popular member of our party was Web- 
ster Brown, or “ Web,” as we knew him : but he 
was assuredly not web-footed. He was undis- 
putedly the best dancer at Cresson, and led the 
german with a manly grace that earned him the 
admiration of the women and the envy of every 
person of his sex outside our circle. His pre-em- 
inence was our delight. He was in trade, doing an 
extensive commission brokerage business; but he 
never talked “shop” away from his office or the 
New York Produce Exchange. He was a New 
Yorker, with all that pride of nativity that its sons 
feel so keenly. George Hallston was the junior 
partner in an old and renowned Philadelphia law 


NEW SWEETNESS IN THE MOUNTAIN AIR. 


I 


firm. He had grown plump and rosy on Bellevue 
dinners and Philadelphia Club suppers; but the 
sobriquet of “ Halibut ” had become attached to 
him in other days, when he was lean and lank, and, 
however incongruous the title now appeared, it 
stuck. 

Charley Tailback, the second delegate from the 
good Quaker City, was our darling pride, because 
of his long line of ancestry. Mentally, at least, we 
always associated with his name Horace’s famous 
tribute to Maecenas — “ atavis edite regibus ” And 
if “the family tree” Charley carried in his trunk 
were to be credited, he was “ descended from royal 
ancestry.” An unbroken line linked him to Will- 
iam the Conqueror. As for myself, I was — well, 
a young man “just starting out in life.” 

One afternoon, as we were sitting in a group on 
the broad veranda of the great hotel, Maud made 
the startling proposition that we should see the 
mountains. 

“ What are we here for ?” she asked, most pro- 
vokingly. 

Perhaps I felt unduly annoyed at the query, be- 
cause I was beginning to have some ideas of my 
own on the subject that I wouldn’t have confessed 
to anybody present except Gwynn. And, indeed, 


12 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


the fancies appeared too vague and undefined even 
to confide to her just now. 

What a revelation that abrupt interrogatory of 
Maud’s was to all of us men ! Imagine our po- 
sitions ! Here were four charming young women, 
all clever and intellectual, into whose society — 
thanks to the home acquaintance — we had been 
thrown on the most agreeable and intimate terms. 
We were all bachelors, free from outstanding 
pledges, and not one among us was over twenty- 
five. Each of us realized in an instant that there 
was a secret in his breast — unconfessed because 
unrecognized until then. 

Though the words sounded to my ears like a 
bold equivocation (for I had noticed the faint blush 
of aroused passion on Arline’s cheek whenever 
Web gazed into her deep-blue eyes), I was satisfied 
to hear Brown answer, 

“ To see the mountains, of course.” 

I believed him even less when I caught the 
glance that Gwynn involuntarily cast in my direc- 
tion. For my part, even while he was speaking, I 
forgot that mountains ever were created. 

“Very well, then,” retorted our Chicago mem- 
ber; “ let us set about it at once.” 

Thus, without deliberation, but by favoring im- 


NEW SWEETNESS IN THE MOUNTAIN AIR. 1 3 

pulse, came into existence “The Allegheny Club,” 
with a membership of eight, and a division of in- 
terests that was as novel as the prospect was de- 
lightful. We had driven considerably about the 
locality in Mr. Tailback’s coach, but we had not 
until now adopted any systematic plan. Organiza- 
tion was what we had needed. 


CHAPTER II. 


THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. 



VUD had an Alpine 
staff that she had 
brought all the way 
from Chamouni; and 
when she appeared at 
breakfast, next day, 
in a short walking 
dress, of rough, gray 
material, we all felt 
that she was a born 
leader of men, if not 
of women. So the 
events of the day proved ; and the chronicle that 
follows gives her spare credit for the gallant ener- 
gy she evoked in the entire party. Sending a 
dispatch to the hotel at a neighboring town to 
order a hearty chicken dinner for eight prospect- 
ively hungry travelers, we assembled in the bright 
sun-parlor, just back of the vast reception hall, 
and perfected our organization. I couldn’t help 


THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. 


15 


noticing how pretty Gwynn looked in her closely- 
fitting, tailor-made suit; and though Arline acted 
more saucily and possessed* more chic , as the 
French say, the quiet amiability of Miss Meredith 
made her a delightful picture to admire. Of 
course, Mrs. Von Scollenger was there to kiss 
her flock of pretty faces, and I couldn’t avoid 
fancying that she dwelt with a trifle less warmth 
on Gwynn’s lips than she had on the previous day. 
Was she really so pretty as to awaken a mother’s 
jealousy? 

Stepping back into the great reception hall to 
get a pair of field-glasses I had left at the counter, 
I lost sight of the group for a few moments. This 
broad apartment is finished, like an old English 
baronial hall, in oak and other hard woods, that, 
like good wines, mellow as they grow older. 
Cedric the Saxon and my lady Rowena might be 
expected down to breakfast at any moment. About 
the large fireplace, with its blazing logs and its 
picture-gallery of coals, stood a few early risers, 
like myself, waiting until their friends joined them 
for breakfast, or seeking to conjure an excuse for a 
second visit to the bar-room. 

Miss Von Scollenger tapped me on the arm as 
I strolled back across the floor, in a state of mental 


6 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


abstraction. I confess that I was gazing through 
the glass partition that separates the two parlors at 
Gwynn’s shapely form, and was mentally comment- 
ing that she did not suffer by comparison with the 
pretty women who stood about her. The moment 
I looked into Audette’s eyes I knew something was 
wrong. 

“ Mr. Tailback is trying to attach himself to 
Arline,” she muttered ; “ but my sister don’t like 
him.” 

“ That’s unfortunate,” I replied. “ Why don’t 
Miss Arline tell him so?” 

“ Because she’s like other women,” was the quick 
retort, with an acerbity that I was unconscious of 
having provoked and couldn’t understand. “ She 
talks about him shamefully to me, and then makes 
eyes at him the moment she gets in his presence.” 

“ Perhaps she thinks she’s annoying you,” I 
thoughtlessly ventured ; “ but, of course, she isn’t,” 
I hastened to add. The absurdity of my first re- 
mark appalled me. 

“ Sir!” 

That was the only answer I received. Miss Von 
Scollenger may have intended it to be very harsh, 
but it conveyed a depth of meaning to me. In 
that one word Audette said, 


THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. 1 7 

“ You have guessed my interest in Mr. Tailback. 
My sister is a flirt, in my opinion, and would take 
him away from me, if only for the satisfaction of 
making me unhappy. Now, be my friend in this 
conflict that is inevitable, and I shall not forget it.” 

I realized this all in an instant, and had pledged 
myself as her coadjutor the next. 

Her eyes, the quick toss of her head, the passion 
of her first step as she left me, the management of 
her left hand that held a glove, the glance she gave 
at a mirror in passing to catch, if possible, the ex- 
pression on my face, and a dozen trifling and in- 
describable actions, thoroughly informed me what I 
was expected to do. She had given me no chance 
to decline. She had made me her ally perforce. 

We were now ready to start afoot, and two 
double carriages had been ordered to meet us at 
the Summit House in an hour. 

A step through an open window landed us upon 
the broad piazza that surrounds all sides of the 
hotel. A moment more and we had gained the 
walk that leads from the rear quadrangle into the 
forest. Love of the wildwood is as old as man. 
I’ve often wondered whether Carlyle meant to add 
to his cynical apothegms when he said in his 
“Heroes,” “All life is figured as a tree.” 


1 8 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

It was originally intended to call this lodgment 
on the crest of the Alleghenies, Rhododendron; 
but wiser counsels prevailed, and it was given the 
name of one of the foremost promoters of the 
great enterprise that brought the locality into such 
close association with the world. Elliott Cresson 
was one of the earliest subscribers to the rail- 
road, and his name was given to this mountain-top 
resort, where the pine tree sings its song, and has 
its dance of joy to the wind’s wild cadence. (I 
hate “fine” writing, but the Chicago member sug- 
gests the last part of the sentence and says it 
must be used.) 

Maud, who was leading the way toward the 
Iron and the Alum Springs, was soon compelled 
to suit her pace to the lumbering companion at 
her side. She set out at a good four-mile-an- 
hour gait; but Hallston, who weighed at least 190 
pounds, could’t stay it. The Chicago girl consid- 
erately slowed down, and we took about twenty- 
three minutes to cover the up-hill mile to the old 
Portage Road. In the park about the Mountain 
House all the underbrush had been cleared away 
and the trees so thinned that the grass grew lux- 
uriantly green; but beyond the fence, over the stile 
to which our footsteps led, was the forest primeval. 


THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. 


19 


Intentionally it has been kept in a state of nature. 
On every side the wildwood, — trees of tender and 
hardy growth struggling for supremacy, creeping 
vines and parasitic growths of half a dozen va- 
rieties. The plants are plenty, but of inferior 
growth. The stately pine, that may be met so 
often in other places hereabout, is almost absent. 
This hardy pioneer has served its day; it has 
probably contributed to the building of yon ma- 
jestic hotel that we have left behind us. It has 
been cut down, and that early settler of the hills, 
the beech, following generally in the wake of its 
dethroned superior, abounds. The ancient hem- 
locks that Dr. Jackson found have long since gone 
to feed the greedy saws. Unlike the evergreens, 
ready for any weather, the maple, chestnut, and 
beech thrive best in the companionship of man. 
Deciduous trees array themselves only for sum- 
mer. They are glorious during their brief careers; 
but when the first frosts come they yield, in a bril- 
liant though expiring burst of color, to their less 
splendid companions, who know neither heat nor 
cold. Like the lobster, they smother their agony 
in a blush. 

“ Here is a view I discovered the other day,” 
said Miss Von Scollenger. “ Don’t you remem- 


20 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


ber, Mr. Tailback, how we rested here and watched 
the glistening of the sun on the spires of Ebens- 
burg?” We had halted on the road at an open 
spot higher than the surrounding land. 

Charley turned, and ceased listening to the chat- 
ter that Arline was pouring into his ears long 
enough to reply : 

“ Indeed I do, Miss Von Scollenger. The day 
was as lovely as this, and the company was quite 
as agreeable ; so I am not likely to forget it.” 

“To the westward, yonder, rises the Laurel Hill 
range,” continued Audette, with real animation. 
She knew Cresson thoroughly, because of sev- 
eral seasons’ visits, and was always appealed to 
on occasions of doubt. “ Many frequenters of the 
Mountain House have never looked behind them 
as they made this walk, or before them as they 
returned,” she added. 

“ Forward, now, to the old Portage Road,” com- 
manded Maud, and five minutes’ walk brought us 
to the foot of plane Five. Audette explained the 
locality; and I recollected that at incline Three, a 
few miles to the westward, the now distinguished 
engineer Roebling (whose name will be linked 
forever with the Brooklyn and New York bridge) 
made his professional start. I was glad to be able 


THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. 


21 


to add a mite of information, and was gratified 
when Gwynn asked me if the Brooklyn bridge 
were really so much higher and longer than the 
structure that binds her native city to Covington. 
We glided forward, ahead of the party, to the 
shadow of the rustic cedar-log lodge, half-buried 
under a side-hill, and in the floor of which is the 
Alum Spring. There we discussed the grave 
question more at our ease. 

This fount is one of the best known in the Alle- 
ghenies. By the side of the former thoroughfare 
was Ignatius Adams’ posting-house; and, natur- 
ally enough, this spring and the iron-water fount- 
ain, fifty feet to the eastward, bore his name until 
recently. I recalled all that I knew about Adams. 
He was an historical character of importance in his 
day. Right near where we stood he opened the 
first coal-mine in the Alleghenies (1834); and he 
even thought it a good day’s work to ship five car- 
loads of the black diamonds when the Portage 
Road brought the world to his doors. At the side 
of the grass-grown thoroughfare, in utter decay, 
stands the house he occupied. It was a point on 
this now-deserted but once-busy highway as well 
known as Altoona or Johnstown to the travelers 
of this age. It is even whispered still that poor 


22 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


old Adams’ spirit revisits the locality; but only 
the old women hereabout have seen it, or heard its 
authoritative voice commanding peace among the 
goblin teamsters and car-captains who gather, as is 
said, on the green sod before the door. Adams 
lived to the age of ioo years, and ascribed his 
longevity to drinking the waters of these medicinal 
springs; though old residents of Summit village 
assert that he often took them in a highly diluted 
form. 

The waters of the Iron and Alum springs cer- 
tainly possess many excellent qualities, as an an- 
alysis shows. The iron water deposits, as it flows, 
quantities of ochery precipitates of hydrated per- 
oxide of iron from the escape of the carbonic acid 
gas. It has been called “ The Fountain of Youth ;” 
and its record, in the Adams case, certainly entitles 
it to serious consideration. 


CHAPTER III. 


TRIAL BY SINGLE COMBAT. 



URNING to the left 
we ascended the in- 
cline to the summit 
This was the highest 
elevation the old 
Portage Road attain- 
ed. A heavy piece of 
excavation was neces- 
sary to make the as- 
cent practicable. The 
plane is 2628 feet, or 
about half a mile, in 
length, and rises 201 feet. On the plateau at the 
top begins the straggling village called Summit, 
and, near by, the once-dusty State pike crosses 
this grass-grown highway at right angles. At the 
post-office is the same official who has handled the 
mails for nearly half a century. 

We stopped at the Summit House to rest until 


24 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

the arrival of the carriages. This ancient hostelry 
was a very familiar point on the trans-mountain 
route of forty years ago. Here was the meeting- 
place of many famous men. Lawyers and mer- 
chants from the two extremities of the Com- 
monwealth made appointments at this house for 
conferences and discussions regarding the next 
season’s markets. Eloping maidens chose this 
as a try sting-place at which prospective husbands 
awaited them. The little stoop-shouldered justice 
of the peace, who dwelt in a now dilapidated 
house on the up-hill side of the road, tied many 
such a golden knot, and wished the youngsters 
ever merry memories, as he kissed the bride, and 
received his trifling fee from the groom. 

“Such an escapade must have been very jolly,” 
said Audette, as the fact was referred to by one 
of our party who had had it from an old mount- 
aineer. 

“Yes, but awfully irregular,” murmured Charley 
Tailback, whose family record ran so far back that 
it probably included a dozen elopements. 

“ O ! Mr. Tailback, think of the fun of it,” in- 
terposed Maud, her voice crisp and musical, and 
her cheeks glowing with health. “ Only a few 
minutes ago, as we climbed the hill, somebody in- 


TRIAL BY SINGLE COMBAT. 


25 




timated that my garb gave me a masculinity of 
manner. Very well, I accept the token. Behold 
me in the year thirty-odd, a young lover seeking 
my best girl. I have come up the mountain from 
the west by the last train. I’m bronzed by a 
thousand suns. Here stands the tavern-keeper, a 
gentle, fatherly old rascal — an ogre ! — but no re- 
lation to the present proprietor.” A laugh from 
the edge of the group introduced William Linton, 
who was already known to most of the party as 
the owner of the Summit House. Maud’s quick 
eyes had detected his presence, but she went on 
with her picture of the past : 

“Ah ! how well he knows what I seek ” 

“ No ; his is a temperance house,” quickly sug- 
gested “ Halibut.” Maud did not notice the re- 
mark, but continued : 

“ He looks grave. ‘ Describe the lady,’ says the 
Ogre. ‘ She is an angel,’ I tell him. ‘ Her cheeks 

are fair and her eyes are blue ’ ‘Very good,’ 

mutters the Ogre; ‘I have her safely.’ O, you dear, 
delightful old Ogre! My joy is bounded only by 
the eternal skies. Ah ! love that ne’er grows cold. 
But the Ogre thinks aloud. ‘ Hath she a wart upon 
her chin ?’ asks he. ‘ Perish the thought,’ say I. 
O! dire dilemma. Shall I see her or— not? Do 


26 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


let me think. Hark j ***** A train is com- 
ing from the eastward, and, as it dashes up, the 
clanging hoofs and ringing cadence of the rails 
sing for me a hymn of peace and joy. From an 
open car, a waving hand ! Saved ! An anxious, 
loving face, — the face I seek, — for ’tis hers — my 
Cynthia. No wart upon her chin.” 

Maud reached her climax with a dramatic ac- 
curacy that cannot be set down in cold type, and 
evoked a round of laughter. Arline was evidently 
displeased, for a reason not then apparent. The 
pre-eminent popularity of her pretty western 
cousin was a surprise to her. A touch of wom- 
an’s envy — a taint inherited from Eve — had chilled 
her blood. In a girl’s most cynical way she com- 
mented : 

“You appear to have your incidents straight, 
Maudie dear. One would think you’d witnessed 
the scene yourself.” 

“ No, Arline ; our good Aunt Cynthia told me 
her experience. That’s how I know.” 

Arline had her way then, but the payment of 
that debt occupied much of Maud’s time before 
leaving Cresson. 

Though Audette must have been gratified at the 
discomfiture of her sister, she met Maud’s eyes 


TRIAL BY SINGLE COMBAT. 2J 

with a frown that implored, even commanded, si- 
lence. 

“Don’t take the matter to heart, cousin,” she 
of Chicago continued. “The destination of such 
fugitives was generally toward the setting sun, 
where they grew up with the country. Besides, 
you know how romantic our relative is, even in 
her old age. Why, I actually believe she’d flirt 
yet if she got the slightest encouragement ” 

“ Now, Maud, that will do,” interposed Audette, 
with an air of authority. 

Still, it was evident that Miss Tennyson could 
have said considerably more on the subject. 

Meanwhile the men in the party had been in- 
troduced to Bernard McColgan, one of the old 
citizens of Summit, and in his company had walked 
down the Portage Road to the scene of a meeting 
of very different character from that described 
by Miss Tennyson. At a spot near the crest of 
plane Five, under the shade of a large tree, occur- 
red one of the most desperate single-handed com- 
bats ever known on the Alleghenies. It was a joy- 
ful event to the hardy mountaineers, the memory 
of which has lasted until this day. The downfall 
of Brian de Bois-Guilbert, at the lance-point of the 
Disinherited Knight of Ivanhoe, on the field of 


28 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


Ashby, was not more gladdening to the Saxon 
heart; though at the passage of arms at Summit 
no queen of love and beauty looked on, and the 
victor went uncrowned. 

In the days of the Portage Road the trains were 
drawn to top of each incline by a cable operated 
by a stationary engine. There the contractors to 
furnish the horses were expected to be ready with 
teams to draw the cars promptly to the foot or the 
crest of the next incline. Constant trouble arose 
between the car-captains (as the train-conductors 
were called) and the horse-owners. After a due 
amount of angry disputation that sufficed to col- 
lect the friends of both leaders, a ring was formed, 
and the differences were fought out by the two 
principals. It was a veritable revival of the old 
trial by single combat. The great fight at Summit 
belongs to the history of civilization. Plere it is, 
straight from the lips of an eye-witness : 

“Car-captain John Shaeffer was the terror of 
the entire route between Columbia and Pittsburgh; 
everybody, from the under-officials to the youngest 
lock-keeper, deferred to him.” Literally, in the 
poet’s words, 

“* * Every ostler quaked with fear 
What time his loud bells wrangled near.” 


TRIAL BY SINGLE COMBAT. 


2 9 


“ Shaeffer was highly esteemed by his employ- 
ers,” continued my informant, “because he could 
take a boat over the hills and through the locks 
between Pittsburgh and Columbia a day quicker 
than any captain who crossed the mountains. 
Shaeffer brooked no delay. At a canal lock, or 
at the beginning of a long haul, his boat or his 
cars must have precedence. It was generally ac- 
corded him ; but occasionally a protest was made, 
and a fight was the immediate consequence. 

“Archibald Galbreath, a sturdy young Scotch- 
Irishman, secured the contract for hauling the cars 
across the summit level. He was performing the 
work to the general satisfaction of the patrons of 
the line when, in October, 1839, Shaeffer’s train 
one day came up the incline from the westward. 
Galbreath had heard of the bully, but never had 
seen him. Several trains were ahead of the last 
comer, but, as usual, Shaeffer demanded that they 
be drawn on a siding, in order that he proceed. 
Galbreath rebuked the impudent car-captain, and 
at the first word of insult sprang upon him. A 
fight, in which every revered rule of pugilism was 
violated, occurred. The men beat each other with- 
out pity or asking quarter for about an hour. At 
the end of that time Galbreath staggered to his 


30 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

feet, weak and bleeding, leaving his antagonist on 
the ground insensible. Nobody on either side had 
interfered, and the Irishman made a complete job 
of his undertaking. He was even accorded the 
privilege of kicking his prostrate foe a few times 
in the face as he lay senseless in the road. 

“ Friends crowded about Galbreath, showering 
congratulations upon him. He received them 
gratefully enough, until some one indiscreetly 
said : 

“‘You’re the biggest man in the mountains, 
Archie : we’re proud o’ ye.’ 

“ ‘ I’m ’bleeged to yez,’ was the modest rejoinder, 
as the victor continued to wipe the gore from his 
face. 

“ ‘ Ye’ve whipped the Terror of the Alleghenies,’ 
shouted a voice. 

“ ‘ Is that Shaeffer?’ shrieked Galbreath, his man- 
ner changing and the paleness of death over- 
spreading his brow. 

“ ‘ Certainly. Shaeffer’s been whipped. Hurrah !’ 
— from many throats. 

“ ‘ Well, fellows, if thet’s Shaeffer, there’s on’y 
one thing for me to do. I’ll git out.’ 

“And before any of his friends could restrain him, 
Galbreath made his escape into the .woods. There 


TRIAL BY SINGLE COMBAT. 3 1 

he remained for several days until Shaefifer suffi- 
ciently recovered to go onward. It was his last 
trip. He was as much afraid of Galbreath as the 
latter was of him.” 

The mere mention of Shaeffer’s name made a 
coward of the man who had conquered him, and 
his weakness in the moment of triumph sullied 
the honor of his victory. 

The purity of the air and water about Summit 
cannot be excelled anywhere in the mountains. 
Not more than two hundred yards distant, on the 
old State pike, is a path leading to the spring 
from which the infant Juniata — blue in song and 
story, but here crystalline — takes its rise. The 
water bubbles up from among a mass of rocks, 
and, after showing some hesitation whether to seek 
the Ohio or the Susquehanna, finally casts in its 
lot with the latter river. For some distance the 
tiny silver thread may be watched pitching down 
the mountain from ledge to ledge, and winding 
through much of the wildest and prettiest scenery 
in the Alleghenies. 


CHAPTER IV. 


CONQUEST OF THE ALLEGHENIES. 


AKING the carriages, 
we drove eastward 
over the Portage 
Road to the top of 
incline No. 6. It is 
the best specimen 
portion yet extant of 
the old thoroughfare. 
Everything remains 
j ust as it was left when 
the channel of busi- 
ness was deflected 
into the valley. Au- 
dette called atten- 
tion to the heavy 
stone sills upon which rested the timber beams 
and iron chairs that carried the strap-rails. Holes 
in these blocks of limestone indicated where the 
road had been bolted to the earth ; but the com- 
mon-place suggestion of cross-ties had not been 



CONQUEST OF THE ALLEGHENIES. 33 

made, and the principal cause of accident was 
the spreading of the track. The curves, too, were 
rounded on short pieces of strap-rail, mitred and 
fitted instead of bent. The jar to the spinal verte- 
brae during a ride over this rocky foundation may 
be imagined. The noisy clangor of the loose rail- 
ends added to the traveler’s misery. 

The road now led under an archway of boughs 
that for more than half a mile spread a canopy so 
thick as to shut out the bright sunlight that made 
the sky resplendent. It was a weird, romantic 
place; and amid the reigning silence one seemed 
to hear the low din and feel the breezy rush of 
spectral trains, manned by goblin crews. The 
sighing winds that always hover about this mount- 
ain-top turned over the leaves of the past for us. 

The very atmosphere we breathed made us sen- 
timental. It was like wandering about the Al- 
hambra gardens with one of the “ Four Beautiful 
Princesses” released from the Vermilion Tower. 

“ I shall never forget this trip,” said Gwynn, by 
my side, in her low, sweet voice. 

“ Or I my delightful companion,” I whispered in 
return, hastening to add aloud for the ears of George 
and Maud, who occupied the seat before us, “ The 
road certainly leaves a picture in the memory.” 


34 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


Ah ! I earnestly hoped the dear girl understood 
me, and I was assured she did by a gentle, almost 
imperceptible pressure given by her arm, as it 
rested snugly against mine. So great was my 
pleasure that I returned the pressure impetuously. 
Maud cynically remarked, 

“ Don’t crowd Gwynnie so, Mr. Craig. She looks 
warm.” 

Apologies were profusely tendered, and we sat 
widely apart for a few minutes until inequalities of 
the road gradually shook us together again. 

Meanwhile our drivers had conducted us into 
the Hollidaysburg pike, that crosses over and 
under the old Portage Road at various points. We 
were all anxious to follow the old thoroughfare to 
the pretty town at its foot; but we were assured 
that several stone-braced embankments were un- 
safe for teams. Then all except Gwynn and I 
were sorry we hadn’t come afoot. As the two 
open carriages drew up close together at the crest 
of one of the inclines, before a broad prospect, 
every member of the party uttered some exclama- 
tion of delight. 

“Were I a poet I’d sing of the Portage Road,” 
was Audette’s enthusiastic declaration. 

“ It was no poet’s task — man’s fierce grapple 


CONQUEST OF THE ALLEGHENIES. 35 

with the Alleghenies; it required muscle and 
money as well as brains,” commented Webster 
Brown, taking a practical Beaver-street-and-White- 
hall view of the matter, though Audette’s poetic 
influence gave a turn to his words. 

Though Miss Von Scollenger’s exclamation was 
a pretty one, Webster Brown’s simple declaration 
contained the cardinal idea essential to a complete 
description of this splendid achievement — I mean 
the simultaneous conjunction of brains, brawn, and 
bullion. His remark pitched the key for my 
thoughts; and the hum of girlish voices reverber- 
ated for a time in my ears without making any 
impression there. 

My friend was right. The conquest of these 
“Endless Hills” was literally a struggle between 
Nature and man. It was an invasion ; and the 
capitulation was forced at the end of three cam- 
paigns. The first of these is memorable for the 
completion of the State turnpikes over the Alle- 
gheny summit; the second ended with the open- 
ing of this Portage Road : but the final surrender 
of Nature, closing the third period, was heralded 
by the Pennsylvania Railroad when its first 
through train went thundering across the mount- 
ains, ’wakening the slumbering echoes of its lonely 


36 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

ravines. But the old Portage Road was the pre- 
cursor of this iron highway, — monarch of rail- 
roads, — just as the National pike, projected from 
Washington to the Mississippi, had pointed the 
westward march of empire. All of these under- 
takings were marvels of enterprise for any age — 
grand in conception, gigantic in execution, and 
amazing in results. 

When the proprietary of this province in 1736, 
Thomas Penn, bought from the Six Nations, for a 
few trinkets, all the lands west of the Susquehanna 
“ as far as the setting sun,” he accepted the crest of 
the Appalachian range* as the western delimitation 
of the acquired territory. For almost a century it 
rose as the natural barrier against the rest of the 
continent, and beyond it the wildest imaginations 
of the sturdy pioneers rarely led them. The sav- 
ages avoided the fastnesses of the hills, for the 
game was scarce ; but after the white men invaded 
the solitude the natives ventured there in quest 
of trophies highly coveted — scalps. A heartless, 
merciless warfare continued until the close of the 
Revolution. Peace then reigned for a time ; but a 
price was offered for scalp-locks by the British 


* Called the Tyannuntaseta, or Endless Hills, by the Six Nations, and 
the Kekkachlananin by the Delawares. (See Appendix B.) 


CONQUEST OF THE ALLEGHENIES. 


37 


commanders in Canada. The ground was again 
hunted over by the savages, and many a valiant 
and gentle life was sacrificed to the greed for 
blood-money. But the resistless invasion of the 
white man continued ; the human tide swept across 
the mountains into the valleys beyond. Civiliza- 
tion took root among the rocky crags of these ma- 
jestic heights, like the native pines, and outlasted 
the ravages of storm or midnight assault. 

A few words from the pretty woman by my side 
recalled me to the present. She had not spoken 
before, or I had surely heard her. Soft and low 
was her voice, as she said : 

“A poet of my own native city wrote ‘The 
Wagoner of the Alleghenies.’ The lumbering ship 
of the mountain toils slowly across the vision of 
my memory even now.” And she repeated the 
verse that contains the lines — 

“* * * The wagoner there, 

The captain of the highway ship.” 

“The Conestoga wagon preceded the Portage 
Road by fifty years,” I explained. “ Its route was 
along the State turnpikes, which its six and eight 
horse teams trampled hard as flint. These roomy 
vehicles were only inferior in accommodations to 


38 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

the many taverns along the well-worn highway, 
where — if you will permit me to quote your 
Thomas Buchanan Read — 

“ ‘ The noisy revelers ceased their din, 

And into the chimney skulked the cur ; 

The startled keeper welcomed in 
The feared and famous wagoner !’ ” 

“ But the Portage Road was the first great 
achievement in the Alleghenies,” interrupted the 
Old Mountaineer, who sat on the seat beside the 
driver, and had no ear for verse. 

It was no place for argument. 

As Hollidaysburg was sighted we halted the 
other team, and after it had been drawn up along- 
side ours on a grassy knoll, the cleverness of 
Audette in securing us the company of the Old 
Mountaineer was made apparent. At her request 
he told the tale of the Portage Road. He was 
an encyclopedia of dates, distances, and elevations. 
Briefly he said : 

“The Allegheny Portage Road was authorized 
by the Pennsylvania Legislature March 21st, 1831. 
Before that date several surveys had been made, 
and the topography of the proposed route over 
the mountains was tolerably known. The canal 


CONQUEST OF THE ALLEGHENIES. 39 

commissioners appointed Sylvester Welch chief 
engineer. He began, with the energy of Caesar, 
on the western slope, pitching his tents on April 
1 2th, 1831, at Lilly’s Mills, near a branch of the 
Conemaugh. Mr. Welch’s party consisted of Solo- 
mon W. Roberts, assistant; Patrick Griffin, sur- 
veyor ; twelve helpers, axemen, and a cook. They 
knew what was to be done and how to go about it. 

“ First the line was run back to the base of 
supplies, Johnstown (21 miles), where it connected 
with the western division' of the Pennsylvania 
Canal. This survey was completed in one month 
and two days (May 14th). Then the theodolites 
were carried back to Lilly’s Mills, and the ascent to 
the summit was made through five and a half miles 
of wilderness. This line was run in less than three 
days to the State turnpike, and the 263^ miles 
were contracted for at Ebensburg on May 25th, 
or forty-three days after the survey began ! Such 
was the enthusiasm with which this work was 
prosecuted; and the same untiring spirit has de- 
scended to the Pennsylvania Railroad men of our 
day. Within twenty-four hours after the signing 
of the contracts the axemen had begun their task 
of clearing a track 120 feet wide through the 
heavy spruce and hemlock forests. 


40 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

“‘Over the top and down again’ was the cry. 
From the turnpike eastward through Blair’s Gap 
to Hollidaysburg (ioj£ miles) the surveyors push- 
ed onward. Grading began on these slopes about 
August ist, and thus the work on the entire line 
was progressing simultaneously. When ready for 
the rails the road consisted of eleven levels and 
ten inclined planes.* There were five inclines on 
each side of these mountains, varying in grade 
from 4 degrees 9 minutes to 5 degrees 5 1 minutes. 
They were numbered eastwardly from Johnstown. 
Engineer Welch’s original idea was to drive a tun- 
nel five miles through the rocks from the foot of 
plane 5 to the foot of 7 on the eastern slope. 
There is still a tunnel 901 feet long through 
a spur of the mountain at the top of plane 1. It 
is 20 feet wide by 19 feet within the arch, and is 
well worth a visit, even in these days of great 
tunnels. 

“ The laying of the first track, and necessary 
turnouts, of rolled-iron edge rails (brought from 
England) on the levels, and a double track of plate 
tramway on the inclines, was put under contract 
April 1 ith, 1832. Two thousand men worked with 
a vigor unprecedented in those days. The first 


* See Appendix C. 


CONQUEST OF THE ALLEGHENIES. 4 1 

track was completed November 26th, 1833, and 
the first car passed over the mountains on that 
day. The road was opened as a public highway 
March 1 8th, 1834. It continued growing daily in 
public favor until December 31st, when ice closed 
the canals. The second track of edge rails was 
completed in March of the following year; and in 
May, 1835, locomotives were introduced on the 
long level — that between planes 1 and 2 (14 miles). 
The first cost of this enterprise was — I think I 
can give the exact figures — $1,634,357.69. But 
this does not include extra allowances subse- 
quently made in recognition of the diligence used 
by some of the contractors.” 

The Old Mountaineer modestly received the ef- 
fusive thanks of the ladies and the warm congratu- 
lations of the men in our party. He was as proud 
of his native hills as though he had grown them. 
Indeed, nobody thought of questioning his propri- 
etary interest in them. He courteously declined 
an invitation to partake of our hospitality, plead- 
ing in excuse a business engagement that ought to 
have been attended to a month before. 

We dined well at the best hotel in Hollidays- 
burg. The girls rested on the sofas and in the 
hammocks on the upper porches, while we men 


42 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


rambled about the quaint town for several hours. 

Among other things we heard a good story 
about James Burns, of Lewistown, State Super- 
intendent of Public Works when the Pennsylvania 
Railroad was in course of construction. Burns 
thought he knew all about transportation, and, 
meeting Mr. J. Edgar Thomson, then the engineer 
in charge of the enterprise and afterwards President 
of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, he thought 
he’d have some fun with that indomitable man. 
Burns described the scene, repeated the conver- 
sation, and made his comments the succeeding 
day. He lived to bitterly regret his remarks ; but 
this is the story he told at the time : 

“ ‘ How do you expect to take your cars across 
the mountains?’ I asked Thomson,” began Burns. 

“ ‘ By locomotives,’ said Thomson ; and then I 
saw that the man was a fool. But I thought I’d 
put him another question, just to find out how big 
a fool he was. So I asked, ‘ How long do you 
expect to take to run from Philadelphia to Pitts- 
burgh in that way ?’ 

I hope to do it in fifteen hours,’ was his reply. 
Then I knew he was a howling idiot, and I left 
him in disgust.” 

To-day this run of 354 miles is done by the Chi- 


CONQUEST OF THE ALLEGHENIES. 43 

cago Limited in nine hours, and by the fast regular 
expresses in ten and one-half hours. 

It was supper-time when our teams with their 
freight of travel-worn adventurers again drew up 
in front of the Mountain House at Cresson. 

We parted with renewed expressions of enjoy- 
ment during the day; and Miss Tennyson was es- 
pecially thanked for the large share she had con- 
tributed to our pleasure. 

When, after supper, we rejoined our friends on 
the broad piazza the sun was sinking behind the 
mountain-tops. Lights began to glimmer in the 
cottages to the right and left of the great hotel. 
A few couples strolled about the grounds, and 
many people walked the porches. The tinted 
mists of twilight were gathering, and the sunset 
shades of cloud-land purples stretched themselves 
layer upon layer. No such colors were ever laid 
down on an artist’s palette. But the peace of this 
scene was interrupted by the rush and roar of fly- 
ing wheels, as a long train crossed the middle fore- 
ground, hurrying westward. It was the Chicago 
Limited ! It was a pulse-throb of the world. 

An hour later the hop began in the spacious 
parlors, and Charley Tailback and Webster Brown 
were in the seventh heaven of enjoyment. 


CHAPTER V. 


A WOMAN’S VENGEANCE. 

RLINE Von Scol- 
lenger had entirely 
miscalculated the 
depth of Maud Ten- 
nyson’s feelings. 
The patronizing, 
satirical manner in 
which the former 
treated the latter 
had not passed un- 
observed by us ; and the several keen thrusts that 
Arline had given Maud during our trip to Holli- 
daysburg satisfied me that a reckoning would be 
had sooner or later. An event that occurred dur- 
ing the evening after our return was especially sig- 
nificant to me, though it may have appeared of 
slight importance to others. I knew that Maud 
had secured, by design or accident, an introduc- 
tion to Miss Bessie Puhnryne (pronounced Poon- 
rin), whom Arline affected to dislike. I had ob- 



a woman’s vengeance. 


45 


served the two young women bow to each other; 
but that evening I was quite surprised to see them 
pass through the great hall of the Mountain 
House arm in arm. The idea flashed upon me in- 
stantly that Maud intended to show her contempt 
for Arline’s opinion, and I was confirmed in this 
theory when the couple made their way toward 
the parlor. But I could not see any farther into 
the future than that. 

The hop had been in progress for some time. 
I found Hallston on the porch, and asked him to 
go with me to the parlor. Perhaps I had a triple 
motive for this act, though I only confessed to 
myself that it was to secure a companion. An 
analysis of motive to human action is always 
interesting. Unconscious cerebration may have 
prompted me, as the ally of Audette, to desire 
Arline’s overthrow, and belief in Hallston’s grow- 
ing regard for Maud may have stimulated my wish 
that he, too, should divine and study the retrib- 
utive diplomacy of a girl he admired. 

Just as we reached the doorway leading from 
the corridor into the parlor the music was re- 
sumed, and to my astonishment I saw Webster 
Brown glide into the centre of the vast apartment 
with Miss Bessie as his partner. Arline was not 


46 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

so accurate in her characterization of the Albany 
girl as she supposed. Neither foot was slow on 
the dancing-floor. Miss Puhnryne waltzed with 
perfect grace ; indeed, hers was the most exquisite 
figure in the room. She was a dark brunette, with 
twinkling, merry eyes, and a rich complexion that 
glowed with health under the influence of excite- 
ment. Her dress, of pale-yellow silk, fitted per- 
fectly, and, being open at the throat, showed with 
charming effect her finely-moulded neck. 

There was a trace of a faint, though unmistak- 
able, sneer on Miss Puhnrync’s lips, as Webster 
Brown reversed her near Arline, Claiming direct 
descent from the Knickerbockers, as the Puhnrynes 
did, it was not to be supposed that Miss Bessie 
could regard a Von Scollenger with real feelings 
of rivalry. Arline’s round and handsome face 
was calculated to make any woman, equal in years 
and opportunities, but doubtful of her own beauty, 
a mortal enemy. 

Arline had been asked to dance by Charley 
Tailback earlier in the evening, but an engage- 
ment with Webster Brown prevented her from 
accepting. Curiously enough, Charley had not 
returned, and Audette seemed to be determined 
that he should not. 


A woman’s vengeance. 


47 


At the end of the waltz (which, appropriately 
enough, was from “The Merry War”) Miss Maud, 
who had been dancing with a young brother of 
Miss Puhnryne and was now seated across the 
room, summoned me by a glance to her side. 

“ I have been telling Miss Puhnryne about you, 
Mr. Craig,” she began. “She is anxious to make 
your acquaintance. Let me take you over and 
present you. Mr. Brown is charmed with her.” 

How much she meant to tell me in that last 
sentence ! 

“ I would be glad to know Miss Puhnryne,” was 
my reply. “ She’s exceedingly graceful.” 

I could not say less than the truth, under 
the circumstances, though I knew a presentation 
would earn me a cold shoulder from Arline the 
next time we met. A glance in the direction of 
the pretty Von Scollenger showed that she had 
divined the scheme. Hallston was doing all he 
could to engage her attention, but his words were 
lost on his companion for the moment. 

Taking my arm, Miss Maud conducted me to 
the Albany girl. On the way she told me, with 
the utmost ingenuousness, that she had brought 
about the meeting between Mr. Brown and Miss 
Puhnryne two days before, out of pure resentment 


48 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

toward Arline for the unkind remarks she had 
made about the pretty stranger; and Maud de- 
clared that, under the rose, Webster was paying 
much attention to the new divinity. Best of all, 
she said, Arline had not suspected the acquaintance 
until that very night — all of which appeared to 
delight Maud beyond concealment. She smiled 
archly, as she added, 

“You can see for yourself that Miss Puhnryne 
is a better waltzer than Arline, and that will utterly 
destroy my dear cousin’s peace of mind.” 

What a creature of impulse is woman ! A pretty 
tangle this, in which I found myself enmeshed. 
Why should I be made a confidant of this young 
girl without my consent? She had confessed, 
without hesitation, to a degree of moral turpitude 
that could not have been extorted from a man, 
however malicious his . heart. The motives to 
most men’s envious acts are guarded as. secrets to 
be hidden from their own consciences. Here was 
a curious, though by no means rare, situation. 
Purely as a whim one woman had employed her 
sarcastic tongue against another, and by that need- 
less act had made of a third woman a vicious an- 
tagonist. These ladies were not murderesses or 
daughters of dragons, but morally pure, society 


A woman’s vengeance. 


49 

young women of this Jupiter age, that we all extol 
so often. 

The necessity of caution on my part was obvious; 
and, in the very act of bowing to Miss Puhnryne, I 
mentally vowed that I’d not be drawn into this 
conflict. 

There was quite a lengthy interval before the 
next dance, so I had a pleasant little chat with my 
new acquaintance. Several times I tried to make 
my escape and to rejoin Arline, who was keenly 
watching us ; but, by some occult mental process, 
not yet explained in the psychological text-books, 
the lady by my side divined my purpose and main- 
tained the flowing conversation without break. 
Could it be, I wondered, that she and Maud had 
deliberately plotted to vex Arline, or was there 
only a mutual feeling of malice ? That Miss Puhn- 
ryne had heard of Arline’s nickname was made cer- 
tain by the emphasis of one of her remarks. 

She was literally chilling the marrow in my 
bones with a breathless tale of her experience on 
a Hudson river ice-yacht during the previous win- 
ter. So vivid were her words that I could literally 
realize the apparent absence of air, experienced in 
the centre of a cyclone or on a vessel running with 
a gale of wind. “Suddenly a wide fissure in the ice 


50 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

appeared ahead ! It was as if there, on the carpet, 
near the music-stand,” she said. “To stop was 
impossible ; to make for the shore was to lose the 
race — for here came the rival yacht, close on the 
weather quarter. ‘ Go on ! ’ I shouted to the 
captain, from the seat to which I was lashed. 

‘ I’ll jam ’er in the wind,’ said he, and he put the 
helm ‘hard down.’ For an instant the forward 
runners rose in the air, and the ten-foot chasm was 
leaped. The rival craft ran into the water, the 
mast went by the board, and one of the crew was 
drowned. I hugged that captain, I did,” exclaimed 
the enthusiastic girl; “for I’m not short in my 
appreciation of kindness, or long in detecting an 
enemy.” 

My cheeks burned, because I was conscious of 
having smiled on several occasions when Arline 
had spoken of the young lady now beside me as 
“ Miss Short-and-Long.” She saw that I under- 
stood her, and dashed into another experience. I 
was a New Yorker? I had traveled on the river 
day-boats ? So had she. Then followed a narra- 
tive of a collision between the “ Vibbard ” and the 
“Merry Owl” on the Hudson, below Poughkeepsie 
— so realistic that I involuntarily seized hold of 
the back of my chair to await the shock. 


a woman’s vengeance. 


5 


It was no longer difficult to see why Miss Ten- 
nyson and Miss Puhnryne were attached to each 
other. Not only had they a common enemy, but 
similar temperaments. Both were gifted with 
clear perceptive faculties, though they lacked bal- 
ance in the exercise of them. 

It did not require much acumen to foresee that 
a new factor had been introduced into our equa- 
tion. Here was an outside influence, in the form 
of a bright, determined young woman of the class 
that would not be put down. She developed 
quickest under persecution, and all that was need- 
ed to transform her into a heroine was open hos- 
tility. If Arline could be made to understand that 
fact it would be a point gained for peace. But 
would not Maud and her ally at once assume the 
aggressive? Indications were that they would. 
Arline’s attitude must, therefore, be one of armed 
indifference. 

During this lengthy interval Charley and Au- 
dette had slipped out through one of Ihe windows 
upon the quarter of a mile of veranda that sur- 
rounds the Mountain House. They did not re- 
turn; and, under the pretext of taking a wrap to 
her sister, Arline left the room with Hallston. 
From that hour the younger sister was assiduous 


52 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


in her attentions to the Philadelphia lawyer; but 
Maud affected not to detect the fact. Webster 
Brown did, however, and in some degree returned 
to his allegiance to Arline. 

How very frail is friendship when tested by 
claims of rival ownership in a lover! 


CHAPTER VI. 


THE STORY OF A PENANCE. 



NE memory associ- 
ated with the “ End- 
less Hills ” never 
loses its charm. While 
we rest a day, let’s 
think of it. Nearly 
one hundred years 
ago Prince Gallitzin, 
serving as an humble 
priest of God, entered these 
then desolate and bleak 
gSR*1 mountain fastnesses, seeking a realiza- 
tion of his dream of earthly peace. He 
had fled from the most brilliant and immoral court 
of Europe, filled with pomp and show, to this 
silent, austere land, where, planting corn and 
chanting the offices of the church, he passed the 
rest of his life. No wider contrast could be imag- 
ined within the range of human experience. His 
is the story of a penance. 


54 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

A pilgrimage to Loretto, the shrine sanctified 
by the bones of this holy man, should not be idly 
undertaken. We all agreed on that point; and the 
day following, our trip over the old Portage Road 
was ardently devoted to a study of Prince Gallit- 
zin’s life and death. It was remarkable enough 
to briefly summarize here for the benefit of those 
who may not have ready access to the books. 

Demetrius Augustin de Gallitzin was born De- 
cember 22d, 1770, at The Hague, Holland, where 
his father, Prince Demetrius de Gallitzin, was em- 
bassador from the Court of Catherine, Empress of 
Russia. His parents were allied to the noblest 
families of Russia and Prussia. The name of 
Gallitzin frequently shines in the annals of Rus- 
sian history. Princess Amelia de Gallitzin was 
born Countess de Schmettau, daughter of Marshal 
Count de Schmettau, one of the heroes of Fred- 
erick the Great’s campaigns, and Countess de Ruf- 
ert. Her two brothers were distinguished officers 
in the Prussian service; one of them, General de 
Schmettau, was killed in the battle of Jena. 

Religion formed no part of the young prince’s 
education. His father was an enthusiast in the 
school of Gallic infidelity; a personal friend of Vol- 
taire and Diderot; and special care was taken not 


THE STORY OF A PENANCE. 55 

to suffer any minister of religion to approach the 
study-room of the young man. He was on the 
certain path to riches, earthly happiness, and glory. 
But one day, like Hercules, he stood parleying with 
Virtue and Vice.* As did the fabled demi-god, 
this young prince chose the path that Virtue 
pointed out. At the age of seventeen, Gallitzin 
declared openly for the Faith, and, despite the in- 
fluence of his father, joined the Church of Rome. 
With his religious convictions his mother, the 
Princess Amelia, secretly sympathized. She gave 
him, covertly, a copy of “ The Confessions of St. 
Augustin,” that he treasured until his death as a 
holy relic. The displeasure of his father was out- 
spoken and deep. To destroy the budding faith 
the young prince was dispatched on a journey 
about the Continent. Before he had gone far the 
French Revolution burst out, convulsing all Eu- 
rope. The young man turned his eyes toward the 
growing Republic on this side of the sea. He 
sailed for the United States and landed safely 
(1792). He had attached to himself a devoted 
friend and scholarly missionary, the Rev. Mr. Bro- 
sius ; and on November 5th, 1792, he entered the 
Sulpitian Seminary at Baltimore. 


* See Xenophon’s Memorabilia of Socrates, Book II., ch. i., sec. 20. 


56 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

By this act he cast aside forever the sword and the 
glory of man and put on the livery of the Faith. 

His health never was robust. During his long 
missionary excursions his bed was frequently the 
bare floor, his pillow the saddle of his horse, and 
the coarsest and most forbidding fare constituted 
his repast. Assuming the name of “ Rev. Mr. 
Smith,” he settled on the crest of the Alleghenies 
in 1799. It was then a vast wilderness, a trackless 
forest. A rude log hut served as his habitation, 
and a log church, twenty-five by thirty feet, was 
sufficient for his flock. He first located on a small 
farm left by a Catholic family named Maguire for 
the support of a priest, but he found that it was 
necessary to widen the scope of the settlement by 
purchasing the tracts of land adjacent. This dream 
he was not able to realize at once, owing to the in- 
ability to obtain his patrimony. His inheritance 
had been confiscated when he deserted the Greek 
faith, and it was not until many years after that, 
through the influence of Henry Clay, he obtained 
a share of his princely fortune. A correspondence 
was carried on between Gallitzin and Clay for many 
years. The writer made earnest, though unsuccess- 
ful, search for these letters. Mr. John Fenlon, of 
Ebensburg, is, so far as I know, the only living man 


/ 


THE STORY OF A PENANCE. 57 

who has read Clay’s letters to Gallitzin, and he tes- 
tifies to the warm friendship that they indicated. 

On the 6th of March, 1803, his father, Prince 
Demetrius de Gallitzin, died at Brunswick. His 
mother then earnestly besought him to return to 
Russia that he might establish his claim to the 
titles and estates of the family. He went to Balti- 
more and explained to Bishop Carroll that it would 
be an act of bad faith on his part to desert the 
devoted followers whom he had induced to settle 
in the wild and uncultivated region about Loretto. 
He declared that “ no worldly advantage that might 
be gained could be compared with the loss of a 
single soul ” that might result from his absence. 
His vast estates in Russia were decreed to his sister 
in their entirety, and, though she could not dispose 
of any property by deed of gift or will, she did sell 
much of it for the benefit of her struggling brother. 
This was the money which he secured, and which 
was expended to the last shilling in the extension 
of his colony. For forty-one years he toiled on, 
and from the wreck of his fortune expended fully 
$150,000 in sustaining and strengthening the Lo- 
retto colony. He was often the victim of decep- 
tion. On one occasion he relieved an apparent 
case of great distress, only to learn afterward that 


58 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

the money so generously bestowed had been squan- 
dered at the tavern. When cautioned about his 
mistaken benevolence in this case, he answered, 

“ I gave it not to him ; I gave it to God.” 

His last winter (1839-40) furnishes an incident 
that illustrates his disinterested nobleness of heart. 
The weather was particularly severe. Snow fell to 
an unusual depth. Nearly everybody — poor and 
rich — ran short of a supply of wood for fuel. 
Hearing of this distress in the village, the good 
priest sent word that his scanty stock was free to 
all who needed it; and in order to economize in 
its use he often studied and prepared his sermons 
wrapped in blankets. His extraordinary humility 
was one of the charming traits in his character. 
To avoid the honors and vain esteem of mankind, 
that would have followed him even into the deserts 
of the Alleghenies, he laid aside his noble family 
name (until 1809). He began his colony with 
twelve heads of families, and left behind some six 
thousand souls!* He changed the wilderness into 
a blooming garden. He died in peace, and his 
memory will live as long as the race of mankind 
shall inhabit these hills he loved so well. 


* According to the Very Rev. Thomas Hedden, who makes this state- 
ment in the funeral eulogy. 


CHAPTER VII. 


AMONG THE RHODODENDRONS. 



HEN the visitors at Cresson want 
a picnic they make a day’s jaunt to 
Rhododendron Park, a wild and beautiful spot 
atop one of the peaks of the Allegheny range. 
It is easily reached by the Bell’s Gap Railroad, 
and the journey thither brings the excursionist 
into close communion with scenery unsurpassed 
this side of the Rocky Mountains. On certain 
days of the week the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- 
pany runs a special train from Cresson down the 
hills to Altoona, and thence to the little station of 
Bellwood, where the Bell’s Gap Road begins. 


6o 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


Our party had contemplated this trip with ardent 
expectancy, and on a unanimous vote decided to 
go at once. The morning was fair and warm, and 
a half hour sufficed in which to have the lunch- 
baskets prepared. We had been advised (indeed, 
Miss Von Scollenger knew from actual experience) 
that at the park nothing beyond soda-water and 
candy was obtainable. The crystalline waters of 
the innumerable springs cannot be depended on 
for a substantial diet. 

We hoped to get away before the Mountain 
House was thoroughly awake. Its population of 
eight or nine hundred people, chiefly from the 
cities, included many late sleepers. To individ- 
ual habits the utmost respect was shown at 
the Mountain House; and the quiet maintained 
throughout its heavily-carpeted halls was a feature 
that has distinguished its management from that 
of many other fashionable resorts in this country. 
The early riser was not permitted to be selfishly 
noisy, as he generally makes himself in the morn- 
ings. The theory of Landlord Dunham was that 
his guests came to Cresson Springs for rest and 
peace, and that the custom of compelling people 
to rise at a certain hour was repugnant to all ideas 
of leisure and comfort. No chambermaid sang her 


AMONG THE RHODODENDRONS. 


6 1 


morning carol through the corridors of the Mount- 
ain House, nor did “ Boots ” slam your shoes 
against the door. 

When we finally mustered at the station we 
found that Miss Von Scollenger and Charley Tail- 
back were not with us. Audette was indisposed, 
her mother said, and Charley had kindly volun- 
teered to remain behind so that he might render 
any aid necessary. Mrs. Von Scollenger, who 
acted as chaperon this morning, did not appear 
to feel any anxiety about her elder daughter’s 
health. 

I understood the matter perfectly when I saw 
Arline’s face. Her eyes were snapping with im- 
patience. I was sorry to overhear her make the 
remark to Maud, in a louder voice than seemed 
necessary, “ Tailback’s a chump, anyhow ; if that 
‘ family tree ’ he talks about were shaken by a cy- 
clone, nothing but greenhorns would come down.” 

About this time the train drew up at the station, 
and we got the ladies aboard without difficulty. 
A waiter-man, who had charge of our baskets, was 
hustled into the baggage car, and the excursion 
began. I’ll describe it as it progresses : 

We pass the switch of the Ebensburg branch, 
and swing by a graceful curve into a deep cut, to 


62 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


emerge at the dingy mountain village of Gallitzin. 
Our train then plunges into the Summit tunnel, 
taking a “ header ” of seven-eighths of a mile into 
the dark, as it seems, to regain the sunlight on a 
rocky shelf, with a wide view of the pine-covered 
hills beyond. Here is a gorge 300 feet deep, at 
the bottom of which sputters a turbid stream. 
Higher and more precipitous grow the hills ; more 
closely does the train hug the edge of the cliff, 
until our iron pathway boldly carries us across the 
narrow valley by a heavy fill and lands us safely 
on the opposite side. The valley widens. A few 
farms are seen on the right. The complexion of 
the forest changes to hard woods. The pines and 
larches are left behind. All the splendors of the 
Allegrippus ravine burst upon us. Many square- 
miles of foliage crowd the landscape. Here’s “ no 
pent-up Utica.” Sweeping ’round a headland we 
find a valley four miles wide, with gently sloping 
sides, all bright with growing crops and neat farm- 
houses. It is a transformation scene. The con- 
trasting picture follows soon, for we emerge in a 
few minutes on the lofty headland that overlooks 
the great gorge crossed by a stone archway at the 
Horseshoe Curve. A moment more and we are at 
the point where Todhunter laid down the switch 


AMONG THE RHODODENDRONS. 63 

to the edge of the bluff, as described so vividly by 
Rev. Edward Everett Hale in “ The Lost Palace." 
For more than a mile our route is almost due 
north. Several hundred feet below is a lake, form- 
ed by a massive stone dam, from which Altoona 
draws its water-supply. Along the banks of the 
small stream that feeds this reservoir is a wagon- 
road following with approximate exactness the his- 
toric Kittanning trail, passing the Point and up the 
subsidiary ravine just beyond the pretty park that 
marks the centre of the famous curve. 

This Kittanning trail was a blood-stained path 
in early days. It was a well-beaten portage from 
Frankstown, on the Juniata, to Canoetown, on the 
West Branch of the Susquehanna and Kittanning 
village, on the Allegheny. The site is now marked 
by a signal-station ; and up the ravine, above the 
Point, are seen a row of blazing coke furnaces that 
cast a weird glow over the sombre locality. We 
seem to hear the war-cry and see the burning 
cabins. In all the old surveys (especially that of 
1794) localities are described as “so far from Kit- 
tanning." 

While we’ve been mentally wandering in the 
past, the train has hurried us down the slope and 
into the open country. Fields of wheat and corn 


64 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

begin to appear; then meadows, cows, and — civili- 
zation. The soil is a red clay. But almost with- 
out warning the valley closes in again and the 
character of the soil changes. Now it is sandy 
and full of shale. The trees are chestnut, oak, and 
maple. Green grass grows abundantly and the 
sod becomes thick. Grain-fields reappear on the 
more gradual slopes, and, farther on, rail fences 
hedge them ’round about. Here is a signal-station 
on the valley side, with an alert man inside it. 
“ O. K.” The prospect widens to five or six miles, 
making room for corn-fields and vegetable gardens. 
We cross a heavy embankment, and dash down a 
long, straight stretch of track into “the mountain 
city,” Altoona, famous throughout the country for 
its vast railroad shops and its hotel, the Logan 
House. 

This city is one of the newest in the Common- 
wealth. It was founded in 1849 by Mr. Archibald 
Wright, of Philadelphia, and has grown to a popu- 
lation of 20,000 in 1885. Its name is of Cherokee 
origin, the word being coined from “Allatoona” 
(High Land of Great Worth) by dropping a syl- 
lable. Strickland Kneass suggested the abbreviated 
word. The county historian* says that when it 


J. Simpson Africa, “ History of Blair County.” Philadelphia. 1883. 


AMONG THE RHODODENDRONS. 65 

was decided to locate the railroad shops at this 
point Mr. Wright sent a lawyer, Mr. Cadwallader, 
to buy the property. A farm of 220 acres, owned 
by David Robison, occupied the site. Robison’s 
price was known to be $ 6000 ; but Mr. Wright sent 
a letter after his commissioner telling him to make 
the purchase, even if he paid $10,000. The attor- 
ney was well received by Robison, and the bargain 
was about to be concluded between the two men, 
when Mrs. Robison appeared at the door of the 
apartment. She called her husband into the kitchen 
and displayed before his eyes Mr. Wright’s letter, 
which she had found in the yard. The lawyer had 
by a mischance lost it from his pocket. Of course 
the bargain was off when the farmer returned to 
the lawyer’s presence, and “the limit” was ob- 
tained. Two other farms, one on each side of 
Robison’s, owned by William Loudon and Andrew 
Green, were also bought at the same time. 

The site is a wild and romantic one for a 
city, but it commands views of some of the pret- 
tiest mountain scenery east of the Mississippi 
River. Rising against the western sky, in masses 
of earth and stone, is the principal Allegheny 
range. The valley that starts below the town and 
runs north-east as far as Tyrone nurses the young 


66 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


Juniata. Short and Brush Mountains shut in the 
prospect to the south and south-east. It is to the 
eastern slope what Johnstown is to the western — 
an equipped garrison. Both towns stand 1175 feet 
above the sea. 

The ride from Altoona to Bellwood, seven miles 
through a semi-agricultural country, is not inter- 
esting. The hills are so much dwarfed, compared 
with those that environ the Allegrippus and Kit- 
tanning Point, that they appear insignificant. This 
narrow valley of the Little Juniata has been seized 
and resolutely held by a sturdy rustic race that 
has wrested a living from the soil and developed a 
civilization of its own. Snug farms — not of large 
dimensions, but worked with a system and an en- 
ergy that causes every foot of earth to yield trib- 
ute to man — are seen as the cars pass. In this 
straitened valley the people never tire of watching 
the trains go by. You will see them come out 
to their doors and gates just as they have daily 
done — parents and children — for more than thirty 
years. It is a pretty idea — this greeting to the tide 
of the far-away world that almost hourly rushes 
past them, leaving naught of itself to vex or make 
aweary. 

As the train comes to a stop at Bellwood you 


AMONG THE RHODODENDRONS. 67 

see the “ observation ” cars awaiting your arrival, 
on a siding at the left. A four-driver locomotive 
takes hold of excursion or “observation” cars, and 
the run up the valley toward the base of the hills 
begins. Lucky people have seats on the left side 
of the car. This engine is worthy the study of the 
curious, for it is literally “the Jumbo of the Rail.” 
Its traction power is so enormous that it could 
climb the slant of an ordinary roof. The weight 
of this monster has much to do with this, for 106,- 
OOO pounds of iron and steel enter into its con- 
struction. At the time it was built there was not 
another 53-ton locomotive in this country. The 
heavy express engines that draw the two-hour 
trains so successfully between Philadelphia and 
New York weigh forty tons, and are massive 
enough for such exacting toil ; but here is a Her- 
cules, almost one-third heavier! And you shall 
see how gracefully, how surely, it will conduct 
you up the steeps that frown upon your advance. 

The ride of about a mile to the beginning of the 
grade, through level country and young wood- 
lands, recalls the trip from Fabian’s to the foot 
of Mount Washington. There is this difference, 
however: the White Mountain trip is through a 
lonely, uninhabitable forest; but this one at Bell’s 


68 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


Gap is refreshed by occasional fields of meadow 
and corn. Among the latter in the summer and 
fall may be seen nestling the melancholy squash. 
At a farm-house door, here and there, stands a 
rosy, healthy-faced girl of the hills, smiling a wel- 
come. Her short skirts not infrequently display 
her feet and ankles, booted in nature’s pink mo- 
rocco, tanned by the summer sun. 

Finally the eight-mile climb begins. The mon- 
ster before you takes a new clutch upon the train, 
and develops latent and unexpected strength. 
The route becomes very tortuous. Progress is 
made as by the convolutions of a serpent. The 
engine sways so that the bell constantly rings 
itself. Later on I almost imagine it tolls my 
doom. If you are an occupant of the fireman’s 
box in the cab with the superintendent, as is 
the writer, your hair will rise as the breathing 
mechanism beneath your feet approaches the first 
of the sharper curves. The rails of steel appear 
to end on the brow of a bluff overhanging a chasm 
of considerable depth, and the confidence, not to 
say persistency, with which the engineer drives the 
locomotive forward toward inevitable destruction 
appalls the stoutest internal sensibility. When 
your fears are deepest, the superintendent shouts 


AMONG THE RHODODENDRONS. 69 

(though his words sound like gentle whispers 
amid the din of the cab), “ The grade only aver- 
ages 160 feet to the mile for the eight miles. 
Rhododendron Park stands exactly 1 160 feet above 
the valley, and 2200 feet above tidewater. Sharp 
as this curve looks (and it is 22 degrees), it is per- 
fectly safe, as is every foot of the road, for we have 
not a single trestle in the eight miles.” 

As we proceed the valley does not forsake us. 
It winds up between the sturdy, tree-covered hills 
that threaten to overwhelm and crush out its very 
identity. As the bluffs grow more frowning and 
sheer the curves become shorter and more fre- 
quent. The engine swings round an arc of 22 
degrees, and after describing a complete letter S 
emerges from the rock-cuttings and stunted pines 
upon the first overlook, called Point Smith. Now 
look over the valley ! It is a glimpse of the home 
of Rasselas ! All the subsidiary elevations have 
melted into the valley, and the field of view ex- 
pands far beyond the village of Bellwood, from 
which our climb began. But there is much to see 
right at hand ; and as the train doubles the Point 
the eye spans a gorge cleaving in twain the very 
range we have so nearly conquered, and raising 
new obstacles. Fully 350 feet below, the tops of 


yo LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

the tallest white pines glisten. It cannot be more 
than a thousand feet in direct line to yon rocky 
precipice, whose edge the track is seen to hug! 
Yet two miles of rails are to be traversed ere we 
stand there. That is the Point of Rocks ! 

Our pilot of steel and steam, leads the way into 
the darkest recesses of the Twilight Gorge. The 
road hugs the right side of this narrow ravine for 
fully a mile toward the north-east, where, by an- 
other of those splendid curves that render this 
road such a remarkable engineering triumph, it 
doubles “the Hairpin Curve” (as Arline christened 
it), and crosses the gorge, near its extremity, on a 
solid stone and gravel embankment. A fine cul- 
vert permits the uninterrupted escape of Shaw’s 
Run, and a diminutive saw-mill, a few hundred 
feet further up the wildly romantic valley, indi- 
cates that trade has followed the iron rails thither. 
Don’t fail to catch a view, from the right side of 
the train, up this desolate region. Observe, espe- 
cially, the wilderness of great white stone slabs 
that might establish the identity of the place as a 
shattered graveyard of the mountain giants. With 
its horizon narrowed to the few hundred yards of 
sky visible above the fir-clad peaks that stifle its 
life and warmth, Dore would have found it a ver- 


AMONG THE RHODODENDRONS. /I 

itable bit of realism to illustrate Dante’s “ Inferno.” 

Bear Gulch and Collier Notch have been passed, 
and Jack’s Canon now comes into the range of our 
vision. The train emerges from the forest upon 
the crest of Point Lookout. “ Grand beyond de- 
scription ” is the comment of one of our party. At 
the saw-mill, 960 feet below, on Bell’s Gap Run, 
are seen several acres of sawed lumber. The view 
down the valley surpasses anything in the Alleghe- 
nies. The distant farms beyond Bellwood, yellow 
and green with wheat or corn, are overshadowed 
by the Brush ridge of the Appalachian chain — its 
pine-edged crest spiked like a fold of Irish frieze. 
Across the valley is Watson Mountain, shown in 
full profile. 

The trees have improved in size and stateliness 
as we have neared the top. The hemlock, or Can- 
adian fir-tree, grows abundantly. It braves the 
fiercest winds, seeming to prefer an exposed place 
to one sheltered from storm. Where these trees 
congregate they take savage, tyrannical possession 
of the soil, crowding out and destroying many 
other forms of vegetable life beneath them. Twi- 
light surrounds their bases at noontime, while 
their lofty tops are bathed in sunshine. They 
seem created to endure forever. A fallen hemlock 


72 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

is a sorrowful sight On the next headland, called 
Point of Pines, stands a fine group of these forest 
monarchs. 

We are now approaching the summit, and hardly 
more than a mile separates us from the park. A 
lumber camp is passed, and the size of the great 
logs is commented on. We look down the valley 
at the next headland. How the view has changed! 
The background of bright fields has disappeared. 
We are lost in the eternal hills ! Mount Watson 
has shut out the world we love, as a deadly sin 
shuts out forever one’s happy life ! The engineer 
blows the whistle. To the left is Rhododendron 
Park, with its rustic bridges and summer-houses, 
its crystalline springs and pretty lakes. We have 
arrived. We are back again in the northern part 
of Cambria County, having recrossed the line near 
Point Lookout. 

This beautiful park is unlike any picnic-ground 
in America. It has been thoroughly cleared of 
underbrush, and ample shade is supplied by the 
tall hemlocks and white pines within the enclosure. 
Without is a wild tangle of waxen-leaved bushes 
that bloom a large part of the summer. This rho- 
dodendron, or rose-bay shrub, is the prettiest plant 
of the Alleghenies. Though usually called “big 


RHODODENDRON TARK. 
































► 



















AMONG THE RHODODENDRONS. 73 

laurel,” it is not a laurel,* but allied to that family. 
Unlike laurel, it is not poisonous, and differs in its 
foliage and inflorescence, being a much more im- 
perial and distinguished plant. It prefers unfre- 
quented spots, solitude — place for meditation ! It 
is a splendid savage. It sometimes unites with 
the laurel to form thickets as impenetrable as the 
Mexican chaparral, the terror of huntsmen. Sev- 
eral skeletons of men were found by the engineer 
corps that laid out the Pennsylvania Railroad across 
the Alleghenies. They were the bones of men who 
had wandered from companions . in crossing the 
mountains, and had starved to death in the clutches 
of the deadly rhododendrons. 

The stems of this plant writhe and twist them- 
selves together in every conceivable form of knots 
and tortuosities. Wherever the branches touch 
earth they take root, and the shrub grows afresh 
from that point. Beautiful in bloom, the manes of 
pale rose-colored and snow-white blossoms are 
borne in large showy terminal clusters. The 
greenish throat of each blossom is spotted with 
yellow and red. Its thick coriaceous leaves fre- 
quently attain the length of a foot. During winter 


* This statement is made on the authority of Dr. Jackson in his volume 
“ The Mountains.” 


74 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

these leaves coil up longitudinally, slender as a 
cigar, and drop close along the stalk. When 
a branch in this condition is carried into a warm 
room the leaves begin expanding and soon fully 
open to the supposed and deceptive summer air 
and sunlight. 

In full bloom the rhododendron is the monarch 
of the American heath. 

While I was musing on the flora of the mount- 
ains the ladies had chosen a pretty bit of grass- 
plot on which to spread the cloth, and George 
and Webster had made a pitcherful of claret punch. 

We were soon eating cold chicken with raven- 
ous appetites, and extolling the merits of our 
caterer. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

A VERY HAPPY MAN. 


ONELINESS did 
not abide at Cres- 
son during our ab- 
sence at Rhodo- 
dendron Park. It 
is doubtful if Miss 
Von Scollenger and 
Mr. Tailback miss- 
ed us. By noon the 
invalid had so far recovered as to be able to ac- 
company Mrs. Tennyson to a shady place on the 
veranda, and there Charley found them. He had 
been very anxious about the young lady’s health, 
he said ; and it did not require urging to anchor 
him in a chair close by her side. 

Mrs. Tennyson was describing the Mountain 
House of other days, and contrasting the Cresson 
of twenty years ago with the beautiful place it 



now is. 


76 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

Mr. Tailback only lived in the past as regarded 
his long line of ancestors. He was a man of the 
present* Upon him even the future had begun to 
dawn since he had known this handsome, intelli- 
gent young woman. He had been doubtful of her 
feelings toward him; but I had encouraged him 
by praising the many real accomplishments and 
graces that I knew Miss Von Scollenger possessed. 

Proud as I was of her confidence and esteem, I 
never had aspired to her love. It seemed perfectly 
natural that she should admire Charley Tailback, 
for he was a woman’s ideal man in many respects. 
He was thoroughly masculine. Though an ath- 
lete, he was graceful on the cricket-field or in the 
drawing-room. He handled the lines of his four- 
horse team with the same ease that he sailed a boat. 
The perfect taste shown in his dress was due to the 
excellence of his tailor rather than to any special 
pride on his part. A ready talker, he was willing 
to sit and listen that afternoon because it gave him 
opportunity for his own thoughts. 

Mrs. Tennyson ran briefly over the history of 
the mountain-top resort. She described the eccen- 
tric Dr. Jackson, who first gave the locality popu- 
larity, and established at that place his famous 
sanitarium for the restoration of broken-down 


A VERY HAPPY MAN. 


77 


humanity. To Dr. Jackson, at Rhododendron, 
came Charles Sumner, after the assault upon him 
by Brooks. Just at the foot of the hill, in the 
darkest hours of the civil war, assembled the 
memorable Altoona conference of the governors 
of all the loyal States. 

Mr. Tailback was thoroughly interested in the 
gentle matron’s conversation, but his own thoughts 
ran at variance with her reminiscences. He had 
frankly admitted to himself several days before 
that he loved Miss Von Scollenger, but he was 
not certain that she reciprocated the attachment. 
What all of us could not help observing was not 
clear to him. Would she accept him? I had 
assured him that she would, but I couldn’t, of 
course, make it plain why I was so confident. 

Their acquaintance was of long standing, though 
it never had been intimate until now. It dated 
from a Saratoga season two years gone, formally 
renewed during each winter that had intervened 
whenever Mr. Tailback made a social visit to New 
York. The Von Scollengers and Tailbacks were 
prominently identified with the best society of the 
cities in which they lived ; indeed, recognition of 
the status of the two families was national. 

In looking back at last summer’s events I have 


y8 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

often accounted for the enthusiasm with which the 
mutual affections of these young people developed 
by the comparatively indifferent character of their 
previous acquaintance. Tailback did not have to 
seek outside his beloved Philadelphia for beautiful 
and intelligent women. Many eligible matches 
existed within his circle of friends. But he had 
grown up in their companionship ; he knew their 
whims, affectations, and petty jealousies. 

The genealogy of the Von Scollengers was an 
open book. It contained no secrets ; it treasured 
no vainglory. Its American record did not date 
farther back than the English colonial times. The 
first Von Scollenger in New York came from the 
free city of Hamburg. He was Prussian-born, 
however, and hated Hollanders. From him his 
descendants inherited this feeling, and the one 
thing that the family always resented was the as- 
sumption that it was allied to the Knickerbockers. 
The household impression was, that the Dutch 
were an indolent people, too much given to beer 
and tobacco. 

Old Karl von Scollenger (he was particular to 
spell von with a small v) had belonged to a once 
prosperous family sadly run down. He was a 
hard-headed, well-educated Teuton, earnestly de- 


A VERY HAPPY MAN. 


79 


voted to trade. He brought over a few thousand 
marks, saved by years of patience, and embarked 
in business as an importer of teas and coffees. 
After a few years he took an American wife. 
From time to time the purchase of a few acres 
of land above the town marked a slow but sure 
financial improvement. He died possessed of 
three small farms in close proximity to the local- 
ities now known as Union Square, Murray Hill, 
and Yorkville. Unfortunately his descendants had 
parted with much of this patrimony; but the 
Union Square farm had descended almost intact, 
through several generations, to the present Von 
Scollenger, Audette’s father, and the income from 
his rent-roll was fully half a million dollars annu- 
ally. The strain of Teutonic blood had so nearly 
run out, through intermarriage with the American 
type of woman, that the name alone was left to 
indicate the tribal origin of the line. The mem- 
bers of the family had not spoken German for two 
generations ; and though the young women of the 
present day had acquired some knowledge of that 
language at school, they knew French much bet- 
ter. Of such were the Von Scollengers, — emi- 
nently reputable, wealthy, givers of good dinners, 
sure of their position without assuming the ar- 


So 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


rogance of the ultra-fashionable class, popular, 
and, above all, self-respecting. Nobody had ever 
charged a Von Scollenger with adding a dollar to 
his purse by the chicaneries of trade. 

Meanwhile, Mrs. Tennyson chatted as volubly 
as ever. From Cresson, by easy stages, she had 
passed to Chicago, and had recounted the rapid 
rise of that splendid city out of the smoke and 
ashes of its great fire. Nothing could be more 
natural than a conversation at Cresson about Chi- 
cago, because nearly one thousand people daily 
pass the mountain resort journeying to or from 
that City of the Lakes. 

Finally, a reference to that charming feature of 
Cresson — its cottage life — recalled to Miss Von 
Scollenger a promise, of several days’ standing, to 
call on a Pittsburgh friend inhabiting one of these 
pretty houses forming the little village among the 
trees of the park. She referred to the invitation; 
and Mrs. Tennyson, who could divine a woman’s 
motives from afar off, suggested that the stroll 
would be highly beneficial. The matron placed 
Audette under Mr. Tailback’s protection, and slip- 
ped away to her room. 

The lovers passed leisurely down the broad 
steps and along the board-walks to the eastern 


A VERY HAPPY MAN. 


8l 


side of the grounds. Two long rows of cot- 
tages ranged themselves on two graded avenues. 
Many of them were handsome buildings — veritable 
country villas. They all occupied the sites under 
ninety-nine-year leases, granted upon condition 
that the cottagers breakfasted, dined, and supped 
at the Mountain House. Such a stipulation work- 
ed no hardship, for the cooking at the hotel has 
always been a refinement of culinary art. In the 
dining-room assembled the best people from all 
parts of the country. Think of a banquet-hall 
240 feet in length ! 

From the main gateway of the Mountain House 
grounds, on the State pike, a path leads eastward 
into the forest that lands the pedestrian at the 
Callan House. 

The visit to the pretty cottager was brief. Mr. 
Tailback was well received, and was shown marked 
respect. Returning to the open air the couple 
did not turn their steps toward the hotel. They 
passed down the sloping path leading to Cresson 
Spring. There, under the canopy that surmounts 
this crystal fount, the lovers sat down to rest, as 
many another pair had done before their day. 
Then they strolled up the hill through the trees 
to the stile leading over the fence separating the 


82 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


park from the wild woods. They had talked of 
many things, of several people, but not of them- 
selves. To Charley the occasion seemed ripe for a 
little egotism. 

“ When do you leave Cresson, Miss Von Scol- 
lenger ?” he asked. 

“ We shall probably remain until the first of 
September,” was the quiet reply. 

“ Would it be agreeable if I should decide to pro- 
long my stay to that time, Miss Von Scollenger ?” 
inquired Tailback, hastening toward a climax that 
he wished to precipitate as soon as possible. 

“ Don’t you think it would be quite as well for 
you to use a shorter title in addressing an old 
friend?” was the evasive rejoinder of the self-pos- 
sessed girl, as her cheeks displayed a soft pink 
tinge of happiness. 

“ Suppose I called you Audette ?” 

“Your sentences would be less pointed, Char- 
ley,” she said, looking him straight in the eyes. 

Though she uttered his name so readily, it was 
done without the slightest evidence of familiarity. 
Could it be that she was encouraging a declara- 
tion of love only to rebuff him ? Had I, a trusted 
friend who knew her family intimately, concealed 
anything from him ? Was she already pledged to 


A VERY HAPPY MAN. 83 

another man ? Who so blind as the lover that 
hesitates ! Not only does he doubt himself, but 
everybody else. One glance into the depths of a 
beautiful woman’s eyes teaches a man the majesty 
of her power. Tailback, who could turn a four- 
horse coach-team in its own length, couldn’t keep 
this conversation in the channel he wanted it to 
take. He temporized. 

“I believe I met your father on one occasion,” 
he began, awkwardly. “ Has his health been good ?” 

“ Quite so,” was the cheerful reply, in Audette’s 
musically-ringing tones. “ He doesn’t seem to miss 
us much when we’re away from him. Papa passes 
most of his time at his club — the Union Club. 
He’s a dear, good man, who humors his daughters. 
He’s ‘ the incarnation of fatherhood,’ as Balzac 
would say. We all love him devotedly.” 

“ Suppose I were— =to call upon him — the next 
— time I visit New York?” stammered Charley, 
growing thoroughly desperate in his misery. 

“ He would certainly be glad to renew the 
acquaintance.” 

“You approve of it, then?” 

“ Why, certainly,” was the innocent reply. “ I’ll 
tell mamma, and she’ll order papa to bring you 
home to dinner.” 


84 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

She was absolutely rude, in Charley’s opinion, 
though, strangely enough, that admission did not 
weigh against her in the balance of his mind. 

“ But I had hoped that you might feel some 
slight interest — I mean to say, that it might not be 
objectionable to you for me to know your father 
better.” He had lost his way completely. 

“ It certainly would be agreeable to me,” was 
her answer, as if to set him right again. “ I want 
all my friends to know papa. He’s a jolly man, 
who never grows any older.” 

“ I might even write him, Audette,” said Char- 
ley, grave as a monk, in spite of himself. 

The meaning was unmistakable ; equivocation 
was vain. He was startled at the change on Au- 
dette’s face. It had grown pale. Her eyes were 
moist and avoided his. She was trembling visibly. 
All her courage was gone. Tailback was literally 
frightened. She understood him. He had burned 
his bridges; retreat was impossible. He seized her 
in his arms and kissed her passionately. He found 
no difficulty after that in telling her all his heart 
longed to impart. 

“ I worship you, Audette,” he said. “ No man 
e’er loved woman as I love you. Will you be my 
wife ? I adore you.” 


A VERY HAPPY MAN. 


85 


Rules of tautology were not made for lovers. 

He held her so firmly that it was with difficulty 
she turned her face toward his. The eyes were 
closed, but her mouth gave the hailing-sign of wel- 
come. He pressed his lips to hers. They were 
cold as marble. She was happy to the verge of a 
shudder. 

The first time a woman is kissed by the man she 
really loves her lips are icy cold. So is her nose. 

Thus was the engagement made ; but its ratifica- 
tion by the gentle father, who was doubtless taking 
his afternoon nap at the Union Club in the bust- 
ling metropolis, recurred to Charley, as the couple 
strolled slowly back toward the hotel. 

“ Now I may write!” he thought, and acted on 
the idea as soon as he had restored Audette to the 
care of her protector. 

Charley Tailback felt confident of Mrs. Von 
Scollenger’s approval ; but he was uncertain about 
the verdict from the head of the family. He de- 
voted considerable time to preparing the letter to 
Paul Von Scollenger, care of the Union Club, New 
York, asking for the hand of his daughter Au- 
dette. In it he expressed a perfect willingness to 
go to the metropolis and to make the request in 
person ; but he hinted plainly that it was his wish 


86 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


to take Miss Von Scollenger away from Cresson as 
his bride. 

He carried the letter down to the mail train that 
passed eastward late in the afternoon, and handed 
it to the clerk in the postal car. He expected to 
wait three or four days for a reply, and had a 
vague fear that it might not be favorable. But 
Tailback did not know the temperament of the 
man whose son-in-law he hoped to become. Paul 
Von Scollenger was like the club to which he be- 
longed, — he lived abreast of events, and met them 
frankly as they arose. 

When the noon mail arrived the next day at the 
club-house, Paul Von Scollenger had breakfasted, 
smoked two cigars, read half a dozen newspapers, 
studied the course of a sluggish stock-market on 
the tape, and was chalking the tip of a billiard- 
cue preparatory to diverting his mind. A servant 
brought him three letters on a silver tray. The 
handwritings of two, post-marked “ Cresson,” were 
familiar. They were from his wife and Audette. 
The third envelope bore the postal-service stamp 
affixed in the mail cars. Who could be writing 

o 

him on a train ? He asked a moment’s delay and 
opened Charley Tailback’s letter. 

I have no idea how this important manuscript 


A VERY HAPPY MAN. 


87 


began; but the chirography was certain, by its 
grace and boldness, to impress Papa Von Scol- 
lenger. Charley’s strong point was not epistolary 
composition ; but I presume one man is about as 
clever as another in committing to paper such a 
request as his was. 

Surprising as the contents of the letter must have 
been, the club man’s face expressed no astonishment. 
Why, indeed, should it ? Were not his daughters 
lovable in his eyes ? Then why not to others ? 

He ran rapidly down through a page and a half 
of neat script until he caught the signature — 
“ Charles Tailback, son of the late Chauncey Tail- 
back ; grandson of Morris H. Tailback, founder of 
the house of Tailback, Broadwood & Co. ; great- 
grandson of Sir Tracy Tailback, Kt., of Con- 

dleton Park, Kent; great-great-grandson of ;” 

but why go farther? The writer considerately 
stopped with a stiff old baronet about the time of 
James I., when that hereditary rank was instituted. 
Charley’s early ancestors were especially gifted 
with that title; but it must have swerved into a 
collateral line before the days of the tough old 
knight, Sir Tracy, who won his spurs on the field 
of battle by an act of personal bravery that would 
have earned him the Victoria cross in these days. 


88 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


This long array of ancestry made no impression 
on Paul Von Scollenger. A sentence about the 
middle of the first page caught his eye. It con- 
tained these words : “ My father left me his entire 
estate, estimated at $1,640,000. It is safely in- 
vested, principally in mortgages, and produces 
$80,000 a year. I am able, therefore, to maintain 
your daughter in a station suitable to her accom- 
plishments and her beauty.” Then followed refer- 
ences to two banks in Philadelphia. 

“The fellow means business,” was Papa Von 
Scollenger’s comment, as he touched an electric 
bell and asked for some telegraph blanks. With- 
out the slightest hesitation he wrote a message to 
the president of each of the Quaker City banks, 
with whom he fortunately had personal acquaint- 
ance, asking a statement by telegraph of Mr. 
Charles Tailback’s financial condition. 

Having dispatched these messages, he ran has- 
tily through his wife’s letter. It contained a very 
flattering reference to Mr. Tailback, but no intima- 
tion of a proposal. Ah ! there had been neglect in 
mailing it, for it was two days old. 

“Ah!” he thought, “ I am consulted promptly.” 

He was already developing a better estimate of 
the would-be son-in-law. 


A VERY HAPPY MAN. 89 

Audette’s note clinched the matter. It was 
brief, but did not ramble. “ Mr. Charles Tailback 
will write you a letter asking you for my hand,” 
she wrote. “ Now, dear papa, don’t make unhappy 
a daughter who loves you. Be kind to Mr. Tail- 
back, for mamma is delighted with him, and so is 
your own Audette.” 

Placing the letters in his pocket, Paul Von 
Scollenger played French caroms for an hour 
and a half, but his game was not up to its usual 
standard. 

At four o’clock the first answer to his Philadel- 
phia inquiries arrived. The servant who handed 
it to the club man observed a shadow of anxiety 
on Von Scollenger’s face. He was not himself. 
He dallied with the telegram as if afraid to break 
the envelope — for it was actually sealed, because 
the messenger-boy had read it early on his route 
and regummed it at a branch office. A father’s 
heart — generally torpid — was asserting itself! He 
did fear to open the message, because by that act 
he might shatter an idol, and rudely awaken a de- 
voted child from a dream of love. Ah, well, it had 
to be done. 

“ Good ! Very good ! Lucky fellow !” were his 
exclamations. 


go LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

President Anguish, of the Pegg’s Run National 
Bank, “ oldest in the city/’ telegraphed : “ Stand- 
ing the very best. Tailback is worth three million 
dollars, and has a large credit balance with us.” 

Paul Von Scollenger chuckled as he thought: 
“ The young man must be worth at least a million. 
Yes, that’s about it. One real dollar to three of 
imagination will do in this case; but that would 
be a liberal estimate were not Anguish so scrupu- 
lously accurate.” The perpetration of “ bulls ” of 
this kind is too common an occurrence to notice. 

When Paul Von Scollenger knew the facts he 
was always master in any crisis. It was his boast 
that he never waited, but acted. (He meant to be 
truthful, for he never saw himself as that waiter 
studied him.) So he stepped into the office of the 
club, wrote a dispatch, called a messenger-boy, put 
him in a cab, and hurried him to the main tele- 
graph-office. 

“ Poor fellow,” he soliloquized, thinking of Tail- 
back. “ He’s liable to be anxious, and he ought to 
know at once.” 

To anticipate still further the events of the next 
chapter, it happened, on the evening following our 
return from Rhododendron Park, that Charley and 
I were sitting on the wide porch smoking, when 


A VERY HAPPY MAN. 


91 


the telegraph-clerk appeared from inside the hotel 
and handed my companion a message. I had no- 
ticed during the day that Charley appeared pre- 
occupied and unnaturally grave. All this disap- 
peared the instant he glanced at this telegram. 
Its words, whatever they were, brought joy to his 
eyes and a confession to his lips. He handed the 
message to me, and I read : 

“ I knew your father well ; my wife recommends 
you, and the moderation of your letter does you 
credit. If my daughter is satisfied, I am. Cer- 
tainly, my boy, speak to her. Paul Von Scol- 
lenger.” 

It was a characteristic greeting from the head 
of the Von Scollenger family, as I knew. It was 
frank, was couched in a tone of caution, and meant 
just what its words implied, but no more. 

Swearing me to secrecy, Charley hunted up 
Brown and Hallston, opened a couple of bottles 
of champagne, then said “ good-night,” and went 
to bed, the happiest man in the mountains. 

How many things happen now-a-days in twenty- 
four hours ! 


CHAPTER IX. 


LUCK IN A HORSESHOE. 

NE can’t take a pas- 
sion as he takes a 
cold,” says Francis- 
que Sarcey. This 
may be open to argu- 
ment; but it is certain 
that one cannot write 
of love-making with 
the method or pre- 
meditation that he 
would of common- 
place occurrences. 

In the natural interest I felt in following the 
rapid march of events in Charley Tailback’s life 
to their triumphant, even glorious, conclusion, I 
left our party perched, like the Noah family of old, 
on a lonely mountain-top. It is due to the ac- 
curacy, as well as the completeness, of history to 
state that we returned safely. The scenery we 
had passed in the morning gave us new sensations 
when viewed from other vantage points. We stop- 



LUCK IN A HORSESHOE. 


93 


ped-over an hour in Altoona, as the ladies wanted 
to make some purchases, and we took a western 
express on to Cresson. The buffet cars were full, 
and we crowded into a forward coach of the train. 

In the seat behind George and Arline sat a quiet 
old man, who, overhearing their talk about the 
Horseshoe bend, made an effort to join in the 
conversation. Hallston was annoyed ; but Arline, 
who relished a new sensation of any kind, en- 
couraged the stranger, and soon had him talking 
glibly. We who sat across the aisle could see by 
the rolling of the old traveler’s eyes that he was 
unduly nervous. He even exhibited traces of 
harmless madness. When he asked Hallston if he 
had ever heard about the lost palace car, I could 
detect a deep anxiety in his eyes, until a negative 
answer was returned. 

“My name is Joslyn, ” he continued. “I have 
traveled much, but I always come back to this 
spot — it has an irresistible fascination for me.” 

At the mention of the name Joslyn, my curiosity 
was excited to the highest degree. 

“ Can it be possible,” I asked, moving over to 
his side, “ that you are the man whom the Rev. 
Edward Everett Hale met at the Auckland Arms, 
in Melbourne, a few years ago ?” 


94 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


“I am Joslyn, who jumped his engine across 
the Kittanning gorge that we are approaching. 
There’s no mistake about it,” was the aggressive 
rejoinder. 

“ Then, you’re the man we want to hear from,” 
said Webster Brown, displaying an unqualified in- 
terest in our neighbor. “ Tell us your wonderful 
adventure as you recounted it to Mr. Hale.” 

“ I allowed as you were skeptics,” said Joslyn, 
in a mollified manner; “but, if you’re likely to be 
interested, I’ll just run over the experience before 
we come to ‘ the Horseshoe.’ ”* 

He looked solemnly out the car-window, mut- 
tered in a low tone to himself, “ She air doing 
about thirty-five mile,” cleared his throat, and, 
leaning forward so as to bring his head within 
the circle of interested faces that surrounded him, 
began : 

“ I was an engineer on ‘ the Great Alleghenian,’ 
as we used to call this line. I had a first-class 
character, and the best wages of any man on the 
road. I ran the expresses and nothing else. Still, 
I never would have thought of IT but for Tod- 
hunter, who was my palace-car conductor. One 


* The Rev. Mr. Hale has written out Mr. Joslyn’s narrative and pub- 
lished it ; but he kindly waives his claims of copyright in order that Jos- 
lyn’s remarkable experience may be briefly reproduced here. 


LUCK IN A HORSESHOE. 


95 


night he was full, — I mean his car was full, — and 
his palace was hot and smelled of whale-oil. He 
came out into the cab with me. It was a splendid 
full moon in August. We had passed Cresson and 
were coming down grade, making the time the 
train had lost that morning at Crestline Junction. 
Seventy miles an hour she ran, if she ran one. 
Good Lord ! it seems like last week. Todhunter 
says to me, ‘Joslyn,’ says he, ‘what’s the use of 
crooking ’round all these valleys, when it would be 
so easy to go across.’ I knew what Todhunter 
meant.” The narrator here drew a map of the 
Kittanning valley and the Horseshoe bend, mak- 
ing a cross just at the sharp curve below the 
Allegrippus, and at the opposite point on the rails 
toward Altoona, eleven hundred feet below. Then 
he continued : 

“All this descent was to the advantage of the 
experiment. Bill Todhunter, a brother of the pal- 
ace conductor, was at that time foreman of repair 
section No. u, on the Great Alleghenian. He 
was in precisely the situation of the whole world 
for trying in practice this great experiment. At 
each of the two crosses on Todhunter’s map the 
company had, as it happened, switches for wood 
trains. Had it not, Bill Todhunter had ample 


96 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

power to make them. All that was necessary for 
the experiment was that, under the pretext of 
readjusting these switches, he should lay out that 
at the upper X so that it would run, on the 
exact grade that he required, to the western edge 
of the ravine, mathematically opposite the end of 
the corresponding switch far below. The gorge 
is only five-eighths of a mile wide. An engine, 
then, running down that grade at the immense 
rapidity practicable there, would take the switch 
with its full speed, would fly the ravine at pre- 
cisely the proper slopes, and, if the switch had 
been accurately aligned, would land on the similar 
switch eleven hundred feet below. Thus would 
many miles of distance be saved, and the trainmen 
would be able to get home to their families a 
quarter of an hour earlier. The scheme was so 
practical, don’t you see, that after a few weeks’ de- 
liberation I finally gave my consent. Once embark- 
ed in the undertaking, I thought of nothing else. 

“Well, the next time I passed, gangs of men, 
under Bill Todhunter’s direction, were seen at 
work on the switches, and in a few days they 
were completed. Then says Bill to me, ‘ There’ll 
be a full moon next Wednesday night. That’s 
the time.’ It was agreed that I should make the 


LUCK IN A HORSESHOE. 


97 


jump then if the night was fine. But I’d just as 
lief own to you that I hoped it would not be fine. 
Bill was to leave the switch open after the freight 
had passed, and to drive up to the Widow Jones’ 
cross-road. There I would stop and take him up. 
Then we would have seven miles down-grade to 
get up our speed, and then — we should see ! 

“ Ah ! it was the finest moonlight night you 
ever knew in October. And if Bill Todhunter had 
weighed that train himself he could not have been 
better pleased — one baggage car, one ‘smoker,’ two 
regular first class, and two palaces. She ran just 
as steady as an old cow. We came to the Widow 
Jones’ square on time. There was Bill; I slowed 
the train without stopping it; he jumped on the 
tender ; I ‘ up brakes ’ again, and sent Flanagan 
the fireman back to the baggage car for some to- 
bacco. When he was gone, says I to Bill, ‘ Take 
out your watch and time the mile-posts.’ And 
he timed them. ‘ Thirty-eight seconds,’ says he. 
‘Thirty-seven and a half; thirty-six, thirty-six, 
thirty-six’ — three times, regular as an old clock! 
Then we came to the mile-post known as Old 
Flanders. ‘ Thirty-six,’ says Bill again. And then 
she took the switch (I can hear that switch-rod 
ring under us now); and then — we were clear! 


98 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

“ The range was a little up, you see, at first ; but 
it seemed as if we were flying straight across. All 
the rattle of the rail stopped, you know; though 
the pistons worked just as true as ever. Neither 
of us said one word; and she just flew. I think 
you may have dreamed of such things. I have ; 
and now — now I dream it very often. It was not 
a half-minute, you know; but it seemed a good 
long time. I said nothing; only Bill just squeezed 
my hand. I could see by the star I was watching 
ahead that we were going down. Suddenly the 
bell-cord tightened ; the old bell gave one savage 
ring. Just that one sound ; all else was still. Then 
she landed on the rails, perhaps seventy feet inside 
the ravine ; took the iron as true and sweet as you 
ever saw a ship take the water. Hardly touched 
them, you know; skimmed — well, as I have seen 
a swallow skim on the sea ; the prettiest, the ten- 
derest touch ever I did see. I landed the train at 
Altoona ahead of time, and was happy, until Tod- 
hunter, the palace conductor, came up in the dark, 
clutched me tremblingly by the arm, and gasped, 

“ ‘ John, we’ve lost the rear palace !’ 

“ It was true. We said nothing ; and the miss- 
ing car and its passengers have never been heard 
of since that beautiful October night.” 


LUCK IN A HORSESHOE. 


99 


Mr. Joslyn concluded as the scene of the story 
came in view. We sought in vain for the switch 
on. the lower side, and more than one of us was so 
impressed with the vraisemblance of the tale, that 
the bottom of the valley was scanned in the hope 
of discovering the lost sleeping car. 

When we reached Cresson we parted with Mr. 
Joslyn good-humoredly. He was going West, he 
said. 

Mrs. Von Scollenger was made acquainted with 
Audette’s proposal, and rejoiced. Then the mail 
arrived, and she soon came waddling across the 
veranda with an open letter in her hand, and said 
to Arline, who was sitting with Audette, Gwynn, 
Charley, and me: 

“ I . have such good news from dear brother 
Dick. He’s coming to see us for a few days.” 

“ How jolly that’ll be,” answered Audette. 

“You’ve heard of Richard Burdell, haven’t you, 
Jack ?” asked Charley Tailback, coming over to my 
side. 

“ The nabob of the Chicago Limited Express ?” 

“ Yes,” replied Charley. “ That’s what he is 
called; and I believe he likes the title. Miss Von 
Scollenger has been telling me about him. He is 
a veritable creature, though I confess I believed 


IOO 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


him a myth. But we shall see for ourselves.” 

I knew much about Mr. Burdell (indeed it was I 
who had first made his identity known to the world), 
and I told my friend at the supper-table. Burdell’s 
position among the money kings of New York was 
an established one, though he avoided the notoriety 
that nearly all others courted. Having immense 
business interests in New York and Chicago, he 
lived not in a hotel or residence at either place, 
but on the Chicago Limited, taking his state-room 
by the month. It was the most enjoyable exist- 
ence that he — a childless widower — could find. 
After trying many modes of life he preferred this 
to all others. Always sure of a front room, and 
with a constantly-varying panorama, he was al- 
ways accessible, by wire or mail, to his friends or 
the executive heads of his mighty business. A 
time-table of the wonderful train was obtainable 
in any city of the country, and the precise loca- 
tion of the hotel on wheels could be told, with the 
hours at which it made its half-dozen stops be- 
tween New York and Chicago. Dispatches that 
he received at Altoona had their answers thrown 
off at the next telegraph- station as the train sped 
past. It was an ideal existence. 


CHAPTER X. 


EBENSBURG AND ITS PEOPLE. 

HE State turnpike 
comes over the Sum- 
mit from the east- 
ward, descends the 
valley and vanishes 
again over the hill to 
the westward. The 
road is straight as a 
surveyor could run it 
for much of the dis- 
tance, and might have 
been the remains of 
an old Roman high- 
way, judged by the contempt which its makers dis- 
played for natural obstacles. 

We had been intent for some time on passing a 
few days at Ebensburg, one of the prettiest towns 
in the mountains. A spur of the main line from 
the Pennsylvania Railroad made communication 
easy, for several trains run daily between Cresson 
and that quaint Welsh community. However use- 



102 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


ful the railroad, Charley Tailback’s invitation to go 
over in his coach made its utilization unnecessary. 
As we expected to be gone two or three days, 
the preparations were more extensive. The ladies 
sent their trunks ahead by rail, carrying the usual 
supply of ammonia flasks and brushes in small 
grip-sacks. The two matrons, without whose pres- 
ence, of course, the young ladies could not have 
gone, bestowed themselves voluntarily within the 
roomy vehicle, while the more agile members of 
the party scrambled to the top. Audette and 
Charley understood one another so well by this 
time that the other girls recognized her claim to 
the seat of honor by the driver’s side. 

Every member of the party had breakfasted 
well, the weather was faultless, and nothing ex- 
isted to weaken the enthusiasm of the occasion. 

“ Now, Patrick, give them their heads !” was 
Charley’s signal for the start. 

The instant the coachman released his hold on 
the leaders, the team manifested the utmost glee. 
Out one of the avenues we rolled, past the snug 
cottages attached to the Mountain H /use, and into 
the pike by the wide gateway in the park. The 
splendid team descended the steep hill in superb 
form. Then an obstacle of serious character con- 


EBENSBURG AND ITS PEOPLE. IO3 

fronted us in the form of the “ low bridge ” on 
which the Pennsylvania Railroad passes over the 
road. It was a tight squeeze for us at the back of 
the coach, and Gwynn, who sat on the highest 
perch of all (just behind Charley and Audette), 
had to climb down in front of them until the 
danger was passed. 

Passing the road to Loretto and the Wildwood 
Hotel, which leaves the pike on the right, a short 
distance beyond the railroad, we soon after neared 
the Dividing Ridge Springs, and the neat, new 
hotel adjacent. Its proprietor is so confident of 
the curative merits of Cresson’s mountain air, that 
he boldly announces in each annual prospectus, 
“ Mr. O’Neill will here state that, where hay-fever 
patients do not find immediate relief, no charge 
will be made for board.” An acute attack of hay- 
fever, no matter where contracted, cannot survive 
the first week’s stay at Cresson. It is a haven of 
prompt relief for all sufferers from that vexatious 
malady. 

The prospect from the brow of the hill soon 
reached was wide and* varied. We were on the 
dividing water-shed between the Susquehanna and 
the Mississippi. The contents of a glass of water 
thrown into the middle of the road may find its 


104 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

way into the Atlantic through the Juniata, or into 
the Gulf of Mexico through the Conemaugh. 

We were soon over the dividing ridge, however, 
and on lower land. For miles,* as we drew nearer 
to it, the new court-house of Cambria County, the 
pride of Ebensburg, was in sight. This edifice, in 
which Judge Robert L. Johnston now administers 
justice (with the co-operation of petit juries, drawn 
from time to time as occasion requires), is one of 
the handsomest of its kind in the Commonwealth. 
The day of its dedication (May 25th, 1882) stands 
forth prominently in the memory of every prop- 
erty-owner in the county. Towering above its 
cupola was seen the blindfolded Goddess of Jus- 
tice, with sword and scales, done in bronze, for the 
terrifying of evil-doers. General Joseph McDonald, 
in the welcoming address on that never-to-be-for- 
gotten occasion, truthfully declared this court- 
house to be “ the first and fairest object of 
architectural beauty that strikes the beholder on 
approaching the town. Being more than two 
thousand feet above the ocean level,” said he, “ the 
earliest beams of the morning sun gild it, and 
‘ parting day lingers and plays around ’ its tower.” 
I drew a pamphlet report of the ceremony from 
my pocket, and quoted his language to my friends. 


EBENSBURG AND ITS PEOPLE. 105 

“Ah! but. he says a cleverer thing than that,” 
commented Maud. “ I \vas looking the speech 
over this morning, and I was particularly struck 
with his remark, ‘ It is altogether proper that the 
ladies should be here, for no lawyer is insensible 
to their attractions or indifferent to their interests.’ 
That’s very neat ; but I don’t know how true it is.” 

There was a flash in Arline’s eyes, as she 
promptly interjected, 

“ We might take testimony in the matter right 
here.” Glancing archly at Hallston, she added, 
in a grave voice, “ Let our lawyer be sworn !” 

“ He has already sworn the same thing a thou- 
sand times,” suggested Webster Brown, who al- 
ways assumed to be Arline’s ally, though it was 
easy to see that she had other ideas. The clev- 
erness of Web’s remark raised a laugh that de- 
stroyed the keenness of Arline’s thrust at Maud, 
and softened the directness of the hint at George’s 
undisguised attentions to her. 

“You were not in Ebensburg on that day, or 
the remark would have perished on the speaker’s 
lips,” retorted Maud, with girlish savageness. She 
was inclined to get angry. Poor George had not 
been permitted the slightest opportunity to say a 
word. He now replied with admirable tact. 


io 6 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


“ Had you ladies ever watched the proceedings 
in the shambles of justice, you’d know that a wit- 
ness’ character is never assailed until after he has 
given his testimony,” he said. 

“ Does the witness decline to give his evidence?” 
asked Arline. 

“The events of the past few minutes impel me 
to that decision,” he answered. 

“ A clear case of contempt,” said Arline. 

And so the badinage continued until we entered 
Ebensburg. We drove rapidly through the town 
and out Horner street to the Maple Park Springs 
Hotel, at the western end of the village. 

Several members of our party strolled back into 
Ebensburg and visited the new court-house that 
we had seen from afar, and about which the Cam- 
bria County people never tire of talking. 

The first court in Cambria County was held on 
March 7th, 1808. Judge R. L. Johnston declares 
that very few important civil cases were tried dur- 
ing the first decade of the history of the court. 
Slander suits were not uncommon, and, whether 
tried by referees or before a jury, the usual ver- 
dict was five dollars — “ not because character was 
cheaper then than now, but because money was a 
great deal dearer.” 


EBENSBURG AND ITS PEOPLE. IO7 

On the criminal side, under the old license laws, 
tippling-house convictions were frequent. The 
standard sentence was a fine of one dollar and costs, 
which it may be supposed did not, to any alarming 
extent, interfere with business. The judges, adopt- 
ing a mercantile term, put everything at “ the low- 
est cash prices.” 

The county had then no resident lawyers ; and 
until 1845 the honors and profits of the bar were 
carried off by attorneys from abroad. Many men, 
afterwards famous, came to Ebensburg. Charles 
Huston, Thomas Burnside, Todd Ross; Coulter, 
of Greensburg, and Black, of Somerset, — all after- 
wards judges of the Supreme Court, — practiced 
here; as did also Thomas White, afterwards judge 
of the Tenth District, Thompson, of the Somerset 
and Bedford District, and John Reed, of the Cum- 
berland District. Besides these were Allison, Or- 
bison, Smith, Bell, Miles, and Taylor, of Hunting- 
don; Hale, of Lewistown; Hale and Blanchard, 
of Bellefonte; Ogle, Forward, Cox, and Baer, of 
Somerset; Foster, of Greensburg; Kelly, Banks, 
Stanard, and Drum, of Indiana; and Banks, Blair, 
Calvin, and Hofius, of Blair County. Moses Canan 
was the earliest resident lawyer, and Michael D. 
Magehan was the first attorney native to Cambria 


108 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

County. He was admitted to practice in Ebens- 
burg in 1828. 

The most interesting feature of the history of 
this county and sturdy people would be “ the hot- 
punch stories ” that were recounted on the cold 
winter nights during “ court week,” when these 
lawyers assembled from the neighboring counties 
to split legal hairs with each other and to brow- 
beat the local judge. However belligerent they 
were in the court-room before their clients, they 
met after dark, as by common impulse, at the vil- 
lage tavern, where a warm room, in close prox- 
imity to the bar, was set apart for their use. 
These quarters much resembled “ The Skippers’ 
Parlor ” at the inn of an English seaport town. 

Not infrequently did it happen that the snow fell 
so deeply that for a week at a time entrance to or 
egress from Ebensburg was impossible. Witnesses 
and clients were alike invisible, and the patient 
lawyers, who sought no quarrel with the elements, 
made merry while the winds whistled * and the 
white flakes drifted. The stories of those days 
were not of love, like the “ Lost Tales of Mi- 
letus,” but were silhouettes of life as it was seen 
and felt by men of that day, struggling, like their 
villages and the civilization they typified, for an 


EBENSBURG AND ITS PEOPLE. IO9 

effective clinging-place. Nearly all the good fel- 
lows who held place in that merry circle have gone 
before the last great court, with their own pleas in 
mitigation of sentence. The writer of these pages 
spent weeks in seeking for these lost “ hot-punch 
stories,” but those he found were so fragmentary 
that they could not be pieced together. Sad, in- 
deed, that those ambrosial nights had no chron- 
icler. 

The history of the Cambria bar abounds in 
many a hearty laugh. Judge Johnston, w r ho has 
preserved many of the incidents, must be our 
authority. About 1842, Judge Black, president 
of the Bedford and Somerset District, introduced 
the innovation of booking up the grand jury'before 
court, thus saving the time and labor of an oral 
charge, and Judge Dean of this district adopted 
the precedent. 

Judge Young also delivered lengthy and lucid 
charges, always following up his definitions by il- 
lustrations. “ Suppose,” he would say, “A. strikes 
at B. within striking distance with an instrument — 
a pitchfork, for instance. If he strike him it is a 
battery; but if he fail to strike him it is simply an 
assault.” 

One morning the grand jury was in the box, 


I 10 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


but Judge Young was absent Accordingly, one 
of his associates proceeded to charge. He told 
the j urymen ( inter alia) that “ an assault and bat- 
tery was where A. tried to strike B. with a pitch- 
fork. If he missed him it was an assault ; but if 
he hit him it was an assault and battery.” As it 
was not the hay season, the grand jury found “ not 
a true bill ” as- to A. and B., and all the rest of the 
alphabet. 

Many of the methods of procedure were curious. 
In ejectments, for example, when a jury came into 
the box ready to deliver a verdict the plaintiff was 
called three times, and if he did not answer, in- 
stead of a verdict a nonsuit was entered. 

During the panic of 1842 much distress and sac- 
rifice of property induced the Legislature to enact 
a “ stay law,” which provided that if the property 
levied on did not bring two-thirds its appraised 
value the writ should be stayed one year. This 
led to the custom of “ borrowing a levy.” The 
idea was an original and clever one. Executions 
were issued against nearly everybody in the north- 
ern part of Cambria County. They took advan- 
tage of the “ stay law ” thus : There was a small 
pile of lumber at Dan Smyer’s saw-mill. Dan 
loaned this to his neighbors for a levy, and when- 


EBENSBURG AND ITS PEOPLE. Ill 

ever the sheriff or any constable appeared with an 
execution, the defendant, whoever he was, showed 
this pile of boards. An appraisement was had by 
three citizens, and as the property, of course, would 
not bring the necessary two-thirds, the writ would 
go over for a year. This lumber — not then worth 
fifty dollars — stayed claims amounting to thou- 
sands. In the spring of 1843 heavy rains fell, the 
waters rose, logs were “ splashed ” or “ driven” to 
market, and before the expiration of the year the 
debts were paid. 

Ebensburg of to-day is a town of attained pur- 
pose. Not only is it one of the loftiest sites in 
the Commonwealth, but its seat of justice is a 
veritable temple. The view from the court-house 
cupola is the widest in the Alleghenies. From 
no other point can so thorough a comprehen- 
sion of the towering magnitude of these hills be 
obtained. 

The hotels of this mountain town are famous 
for their comforts at all seasons, and for their 
especial attractions during the summer. 

Many of the shops and stores in Ebensburg are 
very attractive, and they supply all that the sum- 
mer visitor can desire. 


CHAPTER XI. 


THE CYMRIC AGONISTES. 



BENSBURG is a 
community of grati- 
fied ambition. It is 
snug and comfort- 
able, and it does not 
obtrude itself in any 
other direction than 
skyward. The world 
doesn’t jostle it; but 
its people dearly love 
peace, and in this re- 
spect have their tenderest ' 
- affections satisfied. All its 
excitement occurred in earlier days 
and is past. Its rise to individuality 
and the dignity of a seat of justice was at the ex- 
pense of the sister and rival village of Beulah. 

The story is one of religious rivalry. These 
two Welsh communities settled among the Alle- 
gheny hills about the same time, and with the like 
Christian intent to praise God and to grow rich. 


THE CYMRIC AGONISTES. I I 3 

Both communities had leaders and a following; 
but in the struggle for supremacy that ended with 
the fixing of the county capital at Ebensburg, the 
latter village snatched all the trophies of victory, 
and the despairing hamlet of Beulah, with its sen- 
timental name, died in lingering agonies. 

The day fixed for our visit to the Lost Village 
of the Alleghenies broke bright and fair. We were 
in no undue haste to start, for the site of the town 
was near by ; and the symposium at which we men 
of the party had sat so late the night before had 
somewhat dulled our love of nature for her own 
sweet sake. 

It was ten o’clock before the coach drew up in 
front of the hotel. But every member of the party 
was ready, and the usual delays incident to an ear- 
lier start did not occur. By tacit consent Audette 
was assisted to the seat in front. Charley Tailback 
sprang lightly up beside her and gathered the lines 
in his neatly-gloved hands in a way that showed a 
mastery of the art of driving. The pretty leaders 
stood motionless as bronzes, though the wheel- 
horses pawed the earth impatiently. 

Mrs. Von Scollenger and her matronly relative, 
Mrs. Tennyson, were bestowed as before within 
the capacious vehicle, but the rest of us assembled 


1 14 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

on top. To my regret, Gwynn was again assigned 
to the high seat back of our driver and his com- 
panion. Could it be her own preference? No. 
Charley and Audette wished her there. They ap- 
peared to prefer Gwynn to any of the other ladies of 
the party; and I, who already had so just an esti- 
mate of Miss Meredith’s gentle, unobtrusive qual- 
ities, recognized the merit of the choice, though I 
regretted the isolation in which it placed me. 

Charley and Audette had now entered earnestly 
into the ardent stage of affection, and it was pos- 
sible that they might find occasion to Avhisper soft 
words to each other that would reach the ears of 
a less intrusive person than Gwynn. She could 
have been trusted with any secret whose disclos- 
ure would give pain or annoyance to others. 
That, I judged, was the bond affixed upon her 
lips by her own tender, sympathetic heart; for, I 
doubt not, the revealing of a confidence had the 
same natural attraction to her that it possesses 
for womankind in general. Contemplation of this 
pretty trait in her character drew me closer to her; 
and I thanked heaven that her ingenuous ways 
were not the result of tact or mere worldly discre- 
tion, but of an inborn devotion to the interests of 
friends whose happiness was part of her own. 


THE CYMRIC AGONISTES. I I 5 

As I sat watching Gwynn from my place at the 
back of the coach we had driven out into the 
road, and the horses’ heads had been turned in 
the direction of town. At a brisk trot we de- 
scended the gentle slope past the Belmont Hotel, 
hidden behind its shady grove of locust, chestnut, 
and walnut trees, and, climbing the ascent across 
the little bridge, slowly left the school of St. 
Joseph behind us on our right hand. The circuit 
of the town was made, and various views of the 
surrounding country had from the many points 
of outlook. Regaining the main street of the vil- 
lage, which is identical with the historical State 
turnpike, the horn was blown, and, in defiance of 
any existing town ordinance against fast driving, 
Charley sent the spirited team westward through 
Ebensburg at a brisk trot. The guests of the 
Mountain House appeared on the porches and en- 
vied us, I fear, as we passed. 

The drive out the Pittsburgh pike is not as in- 
teresting as many others among the mountains; 
but think of the goal to which it leads ! 

New and vast prospects open on our left — the 
small valley of the infant Conemaugh growing 
into a garden-plot as we proceed. 

Before we reach “ Beulah the Lost ” we want to 


6 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


know the story of its fate; and George, who has 
sat out much of the previous night in the genial 
company of several of Ebensburg’s scholarly cit- 
izens, becomes the minstrel of the hour. This is 
the tale he tells : 

“ Two Welsh colonies settled hereabouts ninety 
years ago (1795). Their members sought escape 
from the world’s temptations, for they were sin- 
cerely devout people, and they succeeded in this 
wi^h of their hearts to a superlative degree. 

“ George Roberts, afterwards an associate judge, 
was the leader of the first settlement, and planted 
his standard on the hill-top behind us, where 
Ebensburg now is. His followers were Welsh dis- 
senters; and they built a meeting-house before 
they raised a shop or market. 

“The second colony, of about twenty families, 
was composed almost entirely of Welsh Baptists, 
and for leader and pastor had a remarkable man 
named Morgan J. Rees. He was an energetic, 
pushing organizer; and passing straight through 
the nascent village of Ebensburg (named or un- 
named, I know not), he chose such a site for his 
future city as Philip II. selected for the capital 
of Spain. From an architect’s point of view it 
was an impossible site; but Rees had seen Edin- 


THE CYMRIC AGONISTES. II/ 

burgh, if not Madrid, and he knew that Nature 
could be conquered. These Baptists called their 
wild mountain home ‘a place of refuge,’ — though 
the world had never pursued or persecuted them, 
— and chose the name of Beulah as being the land 
to which they were wedded, according to the 
scriptural theory regarding Israel.” 

“ Excuse me, Mr. Hallston, but where is the 
reference to be found ?” interrupted Arline, and 
in the next breath, leaning over the side of the 
coach, she called to, her mother, snugly ensconced 
amid the cushions inside, “ Pass me up the Bagster 
Bible, mamma dear.” 

Among the complete outfit of the coach was a 
small and incongruous collection of books. The 
Bible was there, and occupied a warm place be- 
tween a volume of Balzac and Don Quixote. 
Cervantes’ story was one of Tailback’s warmest 
favorites, and he knew it almost by heart. Before 
the holy book had reached Arline’s hand, George 
had confessed his ignorance and Arline had com- 
mented, 

“ I only asked because you lawyers are so apt 
at citing references and quoting precedents that 
nobody outside of your profession knows anything 
about.” Then she began turning over the leaves 


I 1 8 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

rapidly. “ I know where Beulah is mentioned in 
the Old Testament. It is in Isaiah, very near the 
end of that book. Ah! here it is, in the sixty- 
second chapter. Shall I read?” 

“ Certainly,” said George, who showed the best 
of good nature, and was not averse to Arline dis- 
playing her knowledge of the Bible. Maud’s man- 
ner was unmistakable, however, as she added, 

“ At Sunday-school Arline used to be the par- 
son’s pet.” 

This raised a small titter, in which I was shocked 
to see Audette join; for the horses were walking, 
and all the conversation behind could be heard in 
the front seat. Arline passed the Bible over to 
Mr. Brown, and said, 

“ Will you please read the second and fourth 
verses ?” Then she added, sotto voce, “ Don’t mind 
about the third and fifth.” 

Webster read in a clear, sonorous voice, 

“ ‘ And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, 
and all kings thy glory : and thou shalt be called 
by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall 
name. * * * Thou shalt no more be termed For- 
saken ; neither shall thy land any more be termed 
Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah 
[that is, “my delight is in her”\ and thy land Beu- 


THE CYMRIC AGONISTES. I 1 9 

lah [that is >“ married for the Lord delighteth 
in thee, and thy land shall be married.’ That is 
all,” commented Web, as he finished, having in- 
troduced the side references at their appropriate 
places in the text. 

We all turned toward Hallston as the signal for 
him to resume. 

“We saw that Ebensburg built a church first, 
then turned attention to trade,” George began. 
“ Superstition says that this act explains the se- 
cret of its triumph. The people of Beulah built 
a market-house and a store. Rees declared war 
against his neighbors. Distance to all points was 
computed from Beulah, even before the town pump 
was set up. Rees had attached to his colony a 
young surveyor named Thomas Jones, and his 
services were promptly enlisted in the ambition 
of founding a city. If he had any natural talent 
as an engineer or surveyor it was not displayed 
on this occasion. He ran the main, and, as events 
proved, the only, street through a damp gully, 
and then struggled prayerfully with the problem 
of placing the town picturesquely along the two 
sloping sides of this narrow ravine. The present 
turnpike over which we travel was not built until 
nearly a generation later; but an old stage-road 


20 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


passed a little north of Ebensburg, and thence was 
extended to Beulah.” 

Charley Tailback turned his team into a private 
road, leaving the turnpike at Rees S. Lloyd’s 
house — the first dwelling encountered after leav- 
ing Ebensburg. But little more than half a mile 
along this by-way will bring us to the site of the 
lost mountain town. 

“ Local pride grew more intense with each year,” 
continued Hallston. “ ‘ Boycotting ’ of the most 
obnoxious character was practiced. The people of 
one village would not buy from those in the other, 
though they had to go to far-away Pittsburgh for 
what they might have procured near at hand. 

“ Though both communities were distinguished 
for the simplicity and piety of their members, Beu- 
lah, led by the energetic Rees, crowded on more 
steam than her neighbor, but made less real progress. 

“The county of Cambria was created in 1804. 
That brought a crisis. Commissioners were ap- 
pointed to select a site for the seat of local govern- 
ment. The fate of the rival settlements was placed 
in the hands of Messrs. Ogle, Horner, and Evans. 
Of these three men the first afterwards became a 
conspicuous figure in the history of this country, 
because of an attack upon the extravagances and 


THE CYMRIC AGONISTES. 


1 2 1 


foibles of the Van Buren Administration. Alex- 
ander Ogle was as plain as his name. He loved a 
good story and a practical joke. The * effort of 
his life’ as a Congressman was his assault upon 
Van Buren for using silver spoons at the White 
House. He charged, in the most exaggerated 
invective, that the President lived amid oriental 
luxury. Some witty fellow-member referred to 
the critic as ‘ Spoony ’ Ogle, and the title entirely 
supplanted his Christian name. 

“ These three commissioners fixed the centre of 
Cambria County at a point five miles from Ebens- 
burg, in one direction or another — it is a survey- 
or’s duty to be specific, but not an historian’s. The 
competitors for the county-seat were Munster, — 
not the city in whose cathedral John of Leyden is 
crowned several times every opera season, to the 
accompaniment of Meyerbeer’s delightful music, — 
Ebensburg, and Beulah. The last was nearest the 
centre of the county; and the act creating the 
commission set forth in specific language that ‘ the 
capital must be as near as possible to the centre 
of the county.’ 

“ Ebensburg became the county-town, never- 
theless. Morgan J. Rees, broken in spirit and 
purse, left the scene of his hopes and ambitions 


122 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


and located in Somerset. His wife was a daughter 
of Captain Benjamin Loxley, of Revolutionary fame. 
Ogle’s daughter married Nicholas Murray, after- 
wards locally distinguished as the author of ‘The 
Kirwan Letters,’ — a controversy of considerable ac- 
rimony between Murray and Archbishop Hughes. 
Forsaken by their leader, the people of Beulah — 
kept together previously by the magic of Rees’ re- 
ligious exhortations — scattered in many directions. 
Not one family went to Ebensburg, if tradition can 
be trusted. These people fled before a conquest 
that was commercial rather than religious; for we 
know how the little Catholic fold that Prince Gallit- 
zin established at Loretto has avoided even the be- 
neficent aid of the railway. One by one the houses 
at Beulah (stretching along the single street like 
those in a small English mining town) became ten- 
antless. The doors were not locked. The cover 
usually placed over the broad chimney-top, during 
temporary absence, to keep out the snow and rain, 
was forgotten. Nobody ever expected to return. 
The farewell was forever.” The coach halted as 
Mr. Hallston concluded. Before us was the barren, 
stony, rain-worn ravine. We had reached the site 
of the “ Lost Village of the Alleghenies.” 




CHAPTER XII. 


THE LOST TOWN OF THE HILLS. 



EULAH is prettier 
to talk about than 
to behold. The 
swampy, sterile land 
blooms not with a 
The 

ever-present moist- 
ure reminds one of a 
cemetery for buried 
mortality, instead of 
dead ambition. Not a 


single rose. 


single house is still standin 


er in 


the village proper, though a distant farm-house 
or two redeems the landscape from utter loneli- 
ness and desolation. 

Guided by a rough plan of the locality, drafted 
for us by a good citizen of Ebensburg, we soon 
find parts of the village’s skeleton. We are able to 
fix the ground-plan of the Welsh meeting-house. 
Pushing aside the underbrush, we contemplate the 


124 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

restored original as our mind readily pictures it. 
One entire end of the log structure was a huge 
fireplace. Here it was that Parson Rees ha- 
rangued his zealous flock. The services were all 
in the language of Wales. The pastor’s style was 
fervid to a degree unknown in these days. He 
swayed the feelings of his people to a remarkable 
degree, lifting them to the pinnacle of mental ex- 
altation, or casting them headlong into the depths 
of human despair. He preached until the terrors 
of a bottomless hell yawned between the pews and 
the pulpit. Anon, he set up a ladder, like unto 
Jacob’s, before the excited imaginations of a sturdy 
race that had no dreams beyond those inspired by 
religious zealotry, and, actually suiting his actions 
to the rhetorically dramatic crisis of the moment, 
received the humble believers at its foot. Indeed, 
it is a matter of serious, solemn doubt, whether 
the members of that compact community adored 
most their pastor or their God. 

In this meeting-house was also held the annual 
Isteddfod, or musical festival, so dear to the Welsh 
heart. 

The fame of Parson Rees spread far beyond 
the windy confines of his beloved mountains, and 
he was invited to preach at Philadelphia before one 


THE LOST TOWN OF THE HILLS. 1 25 

of the aristocratic congregations of that city. He 
accepted, duly sensible of the renown it implied 
and the honor it conferred. He prepared his 
sermon carefully in Welsh, and then methodically 
made the translation into book-English. It gave 
the final quietus to his broadcast notoriety. In- 
stead of an inspired minister of the everlasting 
gospel, he suddenly became a butt for public jibes 
and sneers. 

The remarkable character of his English threw 
into spasms of suppressed laughter the great city 
congregation that had gathered to listen to the 
mountain apostle. The text he had chosen is 
known to readers of the St. James’ version as, 
“ Behold the Lamb of God.” But Rees, disdain- 
ing to consult the accepted English translation, 
rendered the sentence from the Welsh Bible into 
the startling words, “ See God’s little sheep.” 
With this for a beginning, the confusion in the 
congregation ultimately became so great that the 
speaker found it impossible to proceed to the end. 

Sadly, and with a full sense of the completeness 
of his failure, poor, wretched Parson Rees re- 
turned on horseback to the community that loved 
him, and in whose eyes he symbolized perfection. 
It was many weeks and months ere rumors of the 


126 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


incident reached Beulah. When it did, the little 
colony was in the throes of anxiety about the fu- 
ture, and had no time to resent the sarcastic smile 
or open sneer. 

When the Buddhist historian from Benares 
stands, with Lord Macaulay’s New Zealander, on 
the site of ruined Beulah, and seeks a reason for 
the causes that led to the decline and fall of this 
compact religious organism, he will certainly as- 
cribe the final catastrophe to causes growing out 
of that vainglorious pilgrimage to Philadelphia — 
a return to a frivolous world that all had fled from, 
and a dalliance with heinous temptations embodied 
in the thirst for earthly honor and renown. 

In vain the members of our party strove to lo- 
cate the various houses of the active members of 
the community. Amid a heap of mingled debris 
Maud espied a small glass bottle, and, like the 
pretty fiction about Cuvier and the single bone, 
in a twinkling she had built a story round it. It 
was idle to assure her that the tiny flask had not 
survived a single winter. To her the site was that 
of the patient village doctor, and on the hearth 
near by she stood with him in fancy while he com- 
pounded some tea of herbs or roots not prescribed 
in any dispensary. O ! what a hunt had we for 


THE LOST TOWN OF THE HILLS. 12 7 

the village pump. Down in one of the fields we 
located the “common” where the younger and less 
devout members of the community played ball, 
jumped the hurdles, and indulged in other games 
not too worldly, re-established after the rules of 
their native land. 

“ Here sat the wives, mothers, and sweethearts,” 
commented Arline, “ and there stood the contest- 
ants in brawny array.” 

Climbing the northern slope, the ladies event- 
ually found a dry spot with green turf, upon which 
we decided to spread the table for luncheon. We 
were only two miles from our hotel ; but we had 
come prepared to pass a few hours in the open air 
under the fair sky. 

After the horses had been unhitched and fed, 
the baskets were carried to the place selected for 
our camp. The picture was domesticity itself. 
Charley and Audette were trying to spread the 
hotel table-cloth that had been packed in one of 
the baskets. Webster was opening a bottle of 
claret, and Mrs. Von Scollenger pressed me into 
service to carve a pair of cold chickens. 

As we ate and chatted, Arline turned the con- 
versation into a literary channel, and recalled 
Hawthorne’s gem of mental fancy entitled “ Main 


28 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


Street/’ It became apparent at once that there 
were critics in the party who dared to say that the 
charmingly beautiful idea that this romance con- 
tains is so obscured by rigmarole and mock-show 
business, that one has difficulty in seeing the hand 
of a master in the work. The reference to “ Main 
Street ” was as malapropos as would have been a 
citation from Le Due’s “ History of a Fortress.” 
Beulah did not grow ’round a forest path. Its 
main street did not develop from a pleasant lane, 
about whose turf lingered the murmuring footsteps 
of the gentle deer or savage man; but ’twas the 
elements that fashioned the ravine, and the survey- 
or’s eye that ran its only thoroughfare straight as 
the straitest moral law. 

Maud produced a small volume in blue and 
gold, and read Goldsmith’s “ Deserted Village,” 
omitting the lines about the ale-house. An atmos- 
phere of unreality and of romance began to sur- 
round us all. Hallston, who had evidently inform- 
ed himself more about the Welsh settlements than 
anybody in our party, suddenly developed into an 
orientalist. He took a scrap from his wallet, as 
he said, 

“ If we are in the humor for more verse, I’d like 
to read an episode from the famous epic poem of 


THE LOST TOWN OF THE HILLS. 


129 


Raghuvansa ,* or ‘ The Children of the Sun/ of 
which Kalidasa, the Hindu Shakespeare, was the 
author. It was written during the first century 
before the Christian era, or eighteen hundred years 
prior to ‘The Deserted Village.’ I quote from 
Professor Griffith’s translation of the original San- 
scrit : 

“ * Sad is the sight, the city once so fair ! 

An hundred palaces lie ruined there ; 

Her lofty towers are fallen, and creepers grow 
O’er marble dome and shattered portico. 

Once, with their tinkling zones and painted feet, 

Gay bands of women thronged the royal street ; 

Now, through the night the hungry jackal prowls, 

And seeks his scanty prey with angry howls. 

Once the tame peacock showed his glittering crest 
’Mid waving branches, where he loved to rest ; 

The ruthless flame has laid those branches low, 

And marred his feathers and their golden glow ; 

The drum is silent that he loved to hear, 

And gone the mistress whom he held so dear. 

Once on the marble floor girls loved to place 
The painted foot, and leave its charming trace ; 

Now the fell tigress stains, with dripping gore 
Of kids just slaughtered, that neglected floor. 

In those dear days, with tints of nature warm, 

In marble statues lived fair woman’s form. 

* “The Raghuvansa,” translated by R. P. H. Griffith, Chief of the San- 
scrit College of Benares, India. 1885. 


130 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

Alas ! those tints are faded now, and dim 
And gathering dust obscures each rounded limb, 

While the cast skins of serpents form a vest 
That hides the beauties of each statue’s breast. 

How sweet the moonbeams used, of old, to fall 
With silvering light on terrace, roof, and wall ! 

But now, neglected, there the grass grows wild, 

The roofs are shattered, and with dust defiled. 

Pure shine those rays and silvery, as of yore, 

But find their light reflected there no more. 

Once in the gardens lovely girls, at play, 

Culled the bright flowers, and gently touched the spray ; 
But now wild creatures, in their savage joy, 

Tread down the blossoms, and the plants destroy. 

By night no torches in the windows gleam ; 

By day no women in their beauty beam : 

The smoke has ceased ; the spider there has spread 
His snares in safety, and all else is dead.’ ” 

Miss Audette recited Gray’s “ Elegy,” and rarely 
had the exquisite art of its lines appeared to 
greater advantage. Her manner was so easy, her 
grace so marked, and her enunciation so clear and 
faultless, that “ our queen ” really charmed us all. 
Charley was surprised and delighted ; and, though 
he said less than the rest of us, his taciturnity may 
have been due to the fact that he felt a proprietary 
interest in the fair creature. 

The afternoon wore away pleasantly. About 
four o’clock the coach was prepared for the start. 


THE LOST TOWN OF THE HILLS. 1 3 1 

After reaching the turnpike Charley drove several 
miles further west; then he swung the team 
around toward Ebensburg, and we soon re-entered 
the quaint town at a brisk trot. 

Webster Brown received several letters by the 
evening’s mail, and secluded himself while he read 
them. He had ceased to be as confidential with us 
as formerly. This change in manner I ascribed to 
his infatuation for the Puhnryne heiress. I won- 
dered if Web hadn’t received a letter from the 
Albany girl; but the thought was dismissed as 
highly improbable. Arline was haughty toward 
Charley and me. Our group was losing its homo- 
geneousness. 

This was our last night at the Maple Park 
Springs Hotel, though we were not then aware of 
the fact. 

Our departure from Ebensburg was precipitated 
the next day by a dispatch repeated from Cresson 
to Mrs. Von Scollenger. It announced that Rich- 
ard Burdell, her brother, who made his home amid 
the comforts and luxuries of the Chicago Limited 
Express, would arrive at Cresson Springs on the 
following morning. The message had been filed 
at Chicago that forenoon, when the train arrived 
on which Mr. Burdell lived. 


32 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


No time was to be lost in returning to the 
Mountain House at Cresson Springs. Mrs. Von 
Scollenger desired to go by an afternoon train, 
but Mr. Tailback anticipated her wishes by order- 
ing out his coach. Trunks were packed to be 
sent by rail, the bills were all paid, and by four 
o’clock we were rolling through the mountain town, 
with the declining sun over our right shoulders. 

Naturally we were disappointed in having to 
omit our projected visit to Loretto on our way 
back to Cresson ; but Arline was the only one in 
the party who said so. She grumbled consider- 
ably. As we drove along Charley and Audette 
took no part in the general talk. They conversed 
earnestly in a low voice. 

Arline’s position during our stay at Ebensburg 
had become positively uncomfortable. She had 
been devoting herself intently to winning favor 
from Hallston, who had originally evinced a de- 
cided preference for Miss Tennyson, and she had 
succeeded to a degree that imperiled Mr. Brown’s 
respect for her. Having realized that danger, Ar- 
line was this afternoon seated with Web at the 
back of the coach, trying to regain her lost 
ground. Still, she was discontented. Miserable, 
indeed, is a woman divided between two passions. 


THE LOST TOWN OF THE HILLS. 1 33 

We had not been at the Mountain House an 
hour before Brown contrived to meet Miss Bessie 
Puhnryne. I now began to seriously blame Web 
for his treason to the ladies of our party. For the 
first time in our lives we began to avoid each 
other. There was no open rupture ; but I suddenly 
awakened to a belief that the warfare against Ar- 
line was becoming heartless. Several times that 
night, as we men played pool together, I was on 
the point of asking Brown to remain faithful to 
our party until we separated; but I couldn’t de- 
cide that it was my duty to become the arbitrator. 

At Mrs. Von Scollenger’s request, on the follow- 
ing forenoon I accompanied her and the young 
ladies down to the station to meet Mr. Burdell. 
The Chicago Limited Express, always on time, 
slowed up, contrary to custom, and the guest we 
expected alighted. Without coming to a halt the 
train moved away, and was soon speeding east- 
ward rapidly as ever. 

Mr. Burdell, about whom I felt so much natural 
curiosity, was a frank, garrulous man of fifty. He 
stood nearly six feet, was too thin to be of hand- 
some figure, but was without stoop or any per- 
ceptible mannerisms of head or arms. His hair 
was tinged with gray, as was his full beard. The 


134 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

clothes he wore were evidently made by a tailor 
who had studied his person. The garb became 
him, and bore the stamp of a fixed social status. 

Before we had reached the house it was evident 
to me that, as between his nieces, he had a decided 
preference for Audette. 

When Mr. Burdell had enjoyed a brief confer- 
ence with his sister he was made acquainted with 
Audette’s engagement to Charley Tailback. He 
was highly interested, and at once displayed un- 
mistakable kindness toward his prospective nephew. 
Meeting us on the porch, he said : 

“ I hear that you had projected a visit to the 
home of Gallitzin. Let me beg you not to post- 
pone it on my account. I’m an old fellow and 
know how to pass the time. The weather is fine 
and may not continue so ; you’d better go to-day.” 

“ We had not intended to go until to-morrow,” 
rejoined Charley. “Then, of course, we desire 
you to join us.” 

“ I’m an odd specimen of humanity, they tell me.” 

“ Indeed, you’re a universal favorite already,” I 
interjected. “ Besides, Charley, Mr. Burdell will 
fit into my place on the coach, because Miss Mer- 
edith and I have arranged to drive over to Loretto 
in a carriage.” 


THE LOST TOWN OF THE HILLS. 1 3 5 

Mr. Burdell was seized with a sudden idea. He 
excused himself, and had another extended con- 
ference with his sister. Charley and Audette were 
sent for, and repaired to Mrs. Von Scollenger’s 
parlor. There was an air of mystery about the 
movements of the Von Scollengers that perplexed 
me very much. When Mr. Burdell rejoined us he 
had a telegraph blank in his hand, on which I in- 
advertently saw a short message addressed to the 
conductor of the Chicago Limited Express at Jer- 
sey City, directing him to retain Burdell’s apart- 
ment, on the return western trip, subject to his 
orders. Could it be that he was going to leave 
us again so soon? 

There was no dancing at the Mountain House 
that evening, and the Von Scollengers, mother and 
daughters, retired to their apartments earlier than 
usual. Webster Brown suggested cards at his 
room; and though Charley appeared strangely pre- 
occupied, he joined the party, bringing Mr. Bur- 
dell. Hallston complained of a headache, and was 
excused. The four of us, therefore, played whist 
for an hour, and then turned to poker for rest. The 
limit was quite small, and the game ran very evenly. 

We stopped about midnight, and went to bed 
preparatory to an early start to Loretto. 


I36 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

About seven o’clock Webster knocked at Char- 
ley’s door. Tailback was awake. Thinking it 
was his man to ask about the horses, he reached 
out of bed and turned the key, as he asked, 

“ Are you Pat ?” 

“ No, my boy,” was Brown’s rejoinder, as his 
face appeared at the doorway; “ I wouldn’t have 
‘called’ you so early.” 

Charley did not smile, for he hated a pun nearly 
as much as he liked draw-poker. 

“ I fear my bad wit surprises you, old fellow,” 
said Webster, anxious to remove the disagreeable 
impression. 

“ Never mind, my friend, I’ll surprise you in re- 
turn before the day is over.” 

Brown laughed cheerily, and, bidding Charley 
“arise while the birds are singing,” went down- 
stairs. He told me of the threat of a surprise, 
but, though we put our best ideas together, we 
couldn’t imagine the probable shape it would take. 




CHAPTER XIII. 

OUR PILGRIMAGE TO THE SHRINE. 



is a shrine 
toward which the 
Christian heart, what- 
ever its creed, must 
turn with affection. 
Now that we were 
generally familiar 
with the noble life- 
sacrifices of Prince 
Gallitzin, we were 
doubly anxious to 
visit the scenes of his 
patient missionary 
work. 

Not a member of 
our party was absent 
when we mustered for 
departure. I had 
been quite willing to 
remain behind, and 
had almost induced 



138 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

Miss Gwynn to stay and take a drive in an oppo- 
site direction ; but Charley appealed to me in a 
more than usually hearty manner, and insisted that 
I should go with the party to. Loretto. Business 
or something else might separate us, he said, and 
we ought to be together as much as possible. 

The request seemed perfectly natural, because 
Tailback was a man of real heart and human 
sympathy. Therefore before the coach had begun 
to climb the first hill on the Loretto road, after 
leaving the old State pike, Miss Gwynn and I 
were following in an open barouche. Dear girl, 
she seemed unusually happy, and I ventured to 
think that it was due to the fact that she was 
in my company. Poor fool, I, who understood 
woman so slightly. There was something else on 
her mind : a fellow-mortal’s happiness was im- 
pending. Possibly I may have sat a trifle closer 
to her than necessary ; but I was absent-minded. 

So many things happened that day that I had 
better reproduce them in the order of their occur- 
rence. 

This road to Loretto is generally in fine con- 
dition. After a gentle ascent it enters a forest of 
maples and beeches, with an occasional pine stand- 
ing, sentry-like, among them. The foliage is luxu- 


OUR PILGRIMAGE TO THE SHRINE. 1 39 

riant during the summer; but in the fall, after the 
first frost has painted the leaves, the beauty of 
these mountain forests is greatly enhanced. The 
route is wild and lonely until the railroad leading 
to Ebensburg is crossed. 

We soon reached the road branching off on the 
right to the Wildwood Hotel, and I asked the 
driver to take us thither. This detour is a de- 
lightful one. The trees increase in variety and 
beauty. Here and there may be seen a fine sam- 
ple of the white ash, with its close-ribbed, finely- 
sulcated, light-gray bark covering a trunk as 
straight as’ a column of Girard College. At a 
height of forty or fifty feet this stalk divides, 
forming a head of finely-arranged limbs filled 
with small, green, pinnate leaves. The maple 
family, also, is well represented in the locality, 
and grows to considerable size. Its shape is in 
decided contrast to the neat, trim companion we 
have just described. The trunk of the sugar- 
maple is twisted and rough, covered with rugged, 
scaly bark when in the open, but is found more 
slender and much straighter when seen amid the 
dense, forest. The beech exists in only one spe- 
cies, but is very plentiful. 

A quarter of an hour’s drive after leaving the 


140 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

main road brought us to the Wildwood Hotel, three 
miles from Cresson. Its site is one of the finest in 
the mountains, overlooking a different range of hills 
from that visible at the Mountain House. 

Returning to the Loretto road, we drove forward 
rapidly in the hope of overtaking Charley Tail- 
back’s party on the coach. We met the faithful 
Patrick in charge of the team, at the entrance to 
the foot-path leading into the forest, amid which is 
located “ The Big Tree.” 

Though this trail is not as clearly marked as it 
should be, and does not have any guide-boards to 
direct the visitor, Miss Meredith and I had little 
difficulty in making our way to the site of this 
natural curiosity. The tree (or trees, for several 
gigantic white pines have entwined themselves to- 
gether into one stalk) stands five or six hundred 
yards back from the road, on the left hand as one 
is traveling Lorettowards. Gathered about its 
base we beheld our party. What pygmies we 
mortals ^re ! 

The immensity of this gigantic pine grows upon 
the beholder. Its head towers above the shadows 
of the surrounding forest into the bright sunlight. 
It stands a full-armed, well-braced warrior, ready 
for battle with the wind, rain, or lightning. The 


OUR PILGRIMAGE TO THE SHRINE. I4I 

tempest’s roar is its frolic; and we can readily 
imagine it serene and dignified, while the oaks 
and beeches — their branches writhing in agony 
and their leaves torn to rags — are begging enraged 
Nature for mercy. It is a grand, a glorious tree ! 

The mammoth pedestal, at the top of which 
stands a small pine forest, is 27^ feet in circum- 
ference. The surrounding foliage renders impos- 
sible an accurate calculation of the Big Tree’s 
height by triangulation, but its stature is between 
90 and 125 feet, probably nearer the latter figure. 
The enormous trunk is quite irregular in contour. 
Such a tree must have been the result of the syn- 
chronous germination of several single seeds. It 
began its career as a united bunch of twigs. After 
the juncture of their lives and fate, the limbs rise 
together, in natural rivalry, like a Brobdingnagian 
candelabrum. The entire bundle of stems is nour- 
ished by one colossal root-base. 

This tree has a celebrity throughout the Alle- 
ghenies. It is said to have been discovered by 
Prince Gallitzin during one of his meditative ram- 
bles. One of Charles Sumner’s favorite walks was 
to pay homage to this thought-inspiring forest 
monarch. 

The white pine is the hemlock’s rival. It is the 


142 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


loftiest of the indigenous trees, and is scattered 
over the mountains in almost prodigal plenitude. 
Other trees in this wood are deserving of respect- 
ful mention. Not far away is a gigantic elm, that 
Russell Smith, a landscape artist of fame thirty 
years ago, reproduced on a canvas forty feet square. 

The oak family has sent very few representatives 
into these hills; or, perhaps, the pioneers of that 
race succumbed to the god of thunder. Accord- 
ing to tradition, old as the Romans, the oak is 
more liable to be struck by lightning than other 
trees. The wild poplar is often encountered: a 
majestic tree, whose fluted trunk covered with a 
deeply-grooved, silver-gray bark, the poplar is a 
spectacle of beauty. After the white pine and 
hemlock it is the lumber-maker of the mountains. 

Resuming the drive toward Loretto, the road 
soon emerges from the woodland and traverses a 
semi-agricultural country, where a rugged, rustic 
race wring a meagre growth of corn, wheat, and 
oats from the resisting earth. In some of the 
shallow valleys the land is still fertile; but upon 
the side-hills the same “ corroding showers ” that 
Horace mentions have rasped away the scanty 
soil that once was there. 

Descending steep and gravelly declivities, and 


OUR PILGRIMAGE TO THE SHRINE. 1 43 

making several turns in the road, Loretto Church, 
the Monastery of St. Francis, and the cupola of the 
Convent of St. Aloysius appeared in sight across an 
intervening valley. Our way led us downward in- 
to and across this depression. Then we began to 
climb the knoll upon which is the shrine we sought. 

Near the crest, in an advanced stage of decay, 
stands the small stone hut in which Prince Gal- 
litzin first dwelt after coming among these bleak 
hills. The interior is dank and mouldy as a tomb. 
Its roof has been repaired from time to time by 
the loving people who revere the memory of the 
missionary. Little as they may understand the 
sacrifices such a life demanded, or the longings 
and heartaches inseparable from such a mortifica- 
tion of the flesh, it is undeniable that the gentle, 
patient humility of this priest of God has rested 
like a mantle upon the village of Loretto. 

A few steps further up the hillside, and behind 
the rude stone hut, is the larger house in which 
Gallitzin passed the later years of his life. We 
looked in vain for the little church of logs, built 
largely with his own hands, in which he began his 
ministerial work. This modest sanctuary he dedi- 
cated with a solemn midnight mass, chanted in 
his fine baritone voice. He chose the night be- 


144 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

fore Christmas (probably 1799) for this impressive 
service. About him worshiped the devout though 
uncultured country folk, many having journeyed 
far through the snows to be present. We are told 
that the drifts outside were waist deep when the 
service ended. But, while the wind moaned and 
the darkness reigned over those eternal hills, the 
scene within that rude little church was made 
cheerful by its lining of evergreens, and bright 
with countless twinkling candles. From that night 
to the day of his death, Gallitzin lived only for the 
service of the Faith. He was absolutely without 
ambition, declined all advancement in his church, 
and rejected even the mitre itself. “ Remembering 
the importance to the whole country of the institu- 
tions that Gallitzin founded,” says a recent writer, 
“ it is difficult to believe that only eighty-five 
years have passed since he consecrated his little 
log chapel, then the only sanctuary of his faith 
between Lancaster and St. Louis.” 

On the site of the missing chapel stands a very 
red brick church of imposing size. It has been 
built since the good father’s death. Although this 
edifice is wholly disappointing, for aesthetic and 
architectural reasons, we must recollect that ex- 
ternal show was repugnant to Gallitzin and his 


OUR PILGRIMAGE TO THE SHRINE. 


H5 


successors. Exteriorly the building looks flushed, 
because of its glaring coat of paint; but within, it 
has an air of peace and sanctity that atones for 
the brutality of the colorist. Father E. A. Bush 
is now the pastor, and his uniform courtesy to 
visitors is a pleasant memory. 

In the church-yard, before the main doorway, is 
the tomb of the Russian missionary. It is a sar- 
cophagus-like structure of marble, standing on a 
limestone base. On its top rests a rough, un- 
painted, coffin-shaped box of wood, much decayed 
by the rain, and surmounted by a wooden cross. 
The faces of the tomb bear Latin and English 
inscriptions, testifying to the enduring memory 
of the man whose bones repose beneath. On the 
side facing the gate we read : 

Sacred to the Memory of 

Demetrius A. Gallitzin, of the noble Russian family of that 

name. 

Born at The Hague, Dec. 22, 1770. Died here May 6, 1840. 

He was Pastor of this Congregation One-and-forty Years. 

A Loving Flock, reaping the Fruits of his all-sacrificing Zeal, 
Erected this Monument as a Tribute of Respect 
To his Virtue and a Memorial of their Gratitude. 

R. I. P. A. D. 1847. 

The prospect from the monument* is wide, 


* On the valley ward face of the tomb are these words, of similar 
import, in the everlasting tongue of Rome: “Sacrum Memorise Dem. 
A. E. Principibus Gallitzin, nat. XXII. Dec. A. D. MDCCLXX. Qui 
schismati e jurato ad. sacerdotium evictus et sacro ministerio per tot. 
hanc reg. perfunctus fide, zelo charitate insignis haic obiit die VI. Maii, 
A. D. MDCCCXL. R. I. P.” 


146 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

though not picturesque. On the opposite hill, 
more than a century ago, lived James Alcorn, a 
pioneer farmer. His wife was one day carried off 
by the Indians during his absence. She never was 
heard of again. For years the lonely man wan- 
dered among these mountains seeking the lost one, 
and never ceasing to bemoan his wretchedness. 

In full view, nearer the village, is the convent of 
St. Aloysius, under the auspices of the Sisters of 
Mercy. It is an imposing edifice, and the school 
has an excellent reputation. The sisters came to 
Loretto from Pittsburgh in 1848, and the little 
house in the village that served as the home of 
Sister Mary Catherine Wynne is still pointed out. 
In 1853 the academy was opened, in 1866 an ad- 
dition was made, and in 1868 the structure was 
still further enlarged. Finally, under the admin- 
istration of Mother M. de Sales Ihmson, the pres- 
ent superior, the building was completed in 1881. 

The Franciscan Monastery, on an eminence west 
of the town, is likewise an imposing structure. The 
Franciscan Brothers came to Loretto from Ireland 
in 1847. In 1850, on a tract of land assigned by 
the pastor, they built and opened an academy. At 
that time the original colony of four brothers had 
increased to ten, and nineteen pupils were in the 


OUR PILGRIMAGE TO THE SHRINE. 1 47 

school. St. Francis College was chartered in 1856; 
additions to the building were made in 1854, 1863, 
and 1870; so that there are now ample accommo- 
dations for three hundred young men. Brothers 
Giles, Lawrence, and Vincent were the best known 
superiors, and to the second of these is due, in 
great measure, the success of the college. 

While most of our party sat on the stone steps 
at the base of Prince Gallitzin’s tomb we missed 
Audette and her mother. They were seen to enter 
the church. We knew them to be devout believ- 
ers. Mr. Burdell and Charley Tailback sauntered 
apart from the group and then slowly walked to 
the parochial residence. Still, I was not curious; 
and Brown and Hallston were oblivious of any- 
thing unusual. Arline was nervous, and betrayed 
herself by inattention to the conversation. Had 
she and Maud been on good terms we would have 
understood the situation much better. I never 
have been able to ascertain how much Miss Gwynn 
knew. She was discretion itself, and, as I have 
said, could be trusted with anything. 

After some time, as we were about entering the 
church, Mr. Burdell joined us and said, in his j oi- 
liest manner : 

“ I am directed to tender Mrs. Von Scollenger’s 


1 48 LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 

compliments, and to request your presence in the 
office of the church at the marriage of her daugh- 
ter Audette to Mr. Charles Tailback. It is quite 
informal, I assure you, and the idea is largely mine.” 

“ This is your surprise, Web,” said Hallston, in a 
low voice, as soon as he could recover from his 
astonishment. 

Mr. Burdell gave his arm to his sister, Mrs. 
Tennyson, and led the way. Three couples of 
younger people followed. 

When we entered the priest’s residence we found 
the lovers, radiant with smiles, awaiting us. There 
was a strange restraint felt by us all in approach- 
ing Charley and Audette. Hallston said to me, in 
a whisper, 

“ Nobody knows what to say to the con- 
demned.” 

A moment more and the good priest entered. 
Having previously administered the interrogatories 
required by the rules of his church, where the con- 
tracting parties are of different faiths, the ceremo- 
ny was brief and beautiful in its simplicity. 

In a few minutes “ our queen ” Audette was 
greeted by the harshly-sounding name of Mrs. 
Charles Tailback. 

Almost before we were aware of their escape 


OUR PILGRIMAGE TO THE SHRINE. 149 

from the house, Charley and Audette entered the 
carriage that had brought Miss Gwynn and me, 
and were driven toward Cresson. 

Patrick, Tailback’s man, brought us back over 
the five miles in excellent time; but the team did 
not behave as when its owner sat on the box. 

We reached the railroad station as the Chicago 
Limited Express whistled at the tunnel. On the 
platform stood Mr. and Mrs. Tailback; and when 
the splendid train, under special orders, came to a 
stop, they sprang aboard to occupy Mr. Burdell’s 
delightful compartment. It was only a momentary 
glimpse that we had of them through the windows 
as the train moved off. 

The wedding couple found every comfort pro- 
vided for them. Their state-room was made beau- 
tiful with blooming and budding flowers. A spe- 
cial porter, who instantly responded to an electric 
bell, attended them. Charley and Audette were 
supremely contented in their elegant quarters. 

The wedding dinner was announced at seven 
o’clock, and, being specially designed for the oc- 
casion by one of the famous chefs of this country, 
was so dainty that I have ventured to reproduce 
it here for the benefit of future occasions of this 
kind : 


150 


LOVERS FOUR AND MAIDENS FIVE. 


Little-Neck Clams. 


Consomme a la Marie Stuart. 


Filets de bass a la Cambaceres. Pommes fantaisie. 
Coucombres. 


Celestine de volaille Palermitaine. 

Veuve Clicquot. 


Asperges en branehe. 

Sorbet a l’lmperiale. 

Becasses roties sur canopes. Salade de loitue. 
Chateau Margaux, 1868. 


Parfait aux peches. 


Cafe. 

We who were left behind felt the separation 
keenly. To me there seemed a growing pathos 
in Charley Tailback’s request to go with him to 
Loretto. It now assumed the form of a supplica- 
tion. One hates to die alone ; and I suppose it is 
more reassuring to have some friend near when 
one is married. How soon we all realized that 
our pleasant associations were shattered, never to 
be restored. 

I write feelingly on this subject for purely per- 
sonal reasons. Miss Gwynn can be trusted with 
any secret, as I have before remarked. She prom- 
ised to keep mine; and though she said in her quiet, 


OUR PILGRIMAGE TO THE SHRINE. 1 5 I 

modest way, “ No, Jack,” I shall always cherish the 
kind remembrance in which she agreed to keep our 
friendship. I called regularly at the Von Scollen- 
gers, in New York, last winter, but the old for- 
mality of manner has returned. 

When we all separated at Cresson Springs, George 
Hallston had an invitation to visit Chicago. After 
considerable preliminary correspondence, he went 
to the City of the Lakes last month. I received 
cards before he left Philadelphia. Mr. and Mrs. 
Hallston are now on their way to Europe. 

Webster Brown and Miss Puhnryne will be mar- 
ried at Albany this fall. I shall be Web’s best 
man. 

Poor Arline ! She lost her lover, and lost him 
to an enemy. 

THE END. 










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APPENDICES. 


A.— THE CRESSON SPRINGS. 

The following analysis of one gallon of 231 cubic inches 
of the waters at Cresson was made for the State Geological 
Survey by Prof. F. A. Genth, of the University of Penn- 
sylvania : 




Ikon 

Alum 

Magnesia 

Contents. 


Spring. 

Spring. 

Contents. 

Spring. 



Grains. 

Grains. 


Grains. 

Sulphate of Ferric Oxide 

= 

trace 

33.38970 

Sulphate of Lime 

= 0.I09I2 

Alumina 

= 

1.60466 

21.20498 

Chloride of Magnesium 

= 0.55962 

Ferrous Oxide 

= 

23-47923 

16.25273 

“ Calcium 

= 1-30444 

Magnesia 

= 

22.58007 

27.69S55 

Sodium 

= 1.22974 

“ Lime 

= 

48.91824 

40.20179 

Bicarbonate of Iron 

= 0.01753 

“ Lithia 

= 

trace 

0.04693 

“ Manganese = trace 

“ Soda 

= 

1 64331 

0.70398 

Magnesia 

= 0.41434 

“ Potash 

= 

0.32405 

0.42622 

“ Lime 

= 0.02252 

Chloride of Sodium 

= 

0.04063 

0.02336 

“ Soda 

= 1.42582 

Bicarbonate of Iron 

= 

S-o347i 

3-74756 

“ Potash 

= 0.20671 

“ Manganese 

= 

.... 

trace 

Phosphate of Lime 

== 0.00408 

“ Lime 

= 

3.52946 

.... 

Alumina 

= 0.00876 

Phosphate of Lime 

= 

0.02914 

■ trace 

Silicic Acid 

= 0.91455 

Silicic Acid 

=« 

1.20832 

1.86794 

Nitrous Acid 

= trace 





Carbonic Acid (free) 

— 0.66390 


108.39182 

I45-56374 


6.88113 


The Cresson Spring is absolutely pure water. 

Rhododendron Spring, 1000 feet north-east of the Mount- 
ain House ; mean temperature, 43 0 F. 

A few hundred yards north of this spring is a group : 

The Hemlock Springs , containing iron, with carbonate of 
iron, and are in a dense hemlock forest. 

Cakation Spring , 1200 feet east of Hemlock ; higher up in 
the geological series ; emerging from slate ; exceedingly pure. 

Quemahoning Spring , a trace of sulphate of lime and 
magnesia. 

Meadow Spring , just west of the preceding ; same gen- 
eral character. 

Discord Spring , traces of salts of lime and iron. 

Brandy Spring, pure freestone water; called “Brandy” 
because of the celebration when it was discovered. 


154 


APPENDICES. 


B.— ORIGIN OF THE WORD ALLEGHENY. 

“No name in the Lenape legends has given rise to more 
extensive discussion than Talligewi , usually connected with 
Alligewi and this again with Allegheny,” says Dr. D. G. 
Brinton. This seems to be supported by Loskiel ( Ges- 
chickte der Mission , p. 164). "The meaning here assigned 
to Alligewinengk , “land where they arrived from distant 
places,” is evidently based on the resolution of the com- 
pound into talli , there, icku , to that place ; ewak , they go, 
with a locative final. The initial t is often omitted in ad- 
verbial compounds of talli. Bishop Ettwein differs with 
the above. He says, “The Delawares call the western 
country Alligewenork, or War Path ” (Bulletin of Pa. Hist. 
Soc., p. 34). Basing his opinion on an expression in the 
Journal of C. F. Post, to the effect that Allegheny means 
“fine or fair river,” Dr. J. H. Trumball analyzes it into 
weilik , hannt, sipu , “best rapid stream, long river.” There 
is no probability that the word is Iroquois. The Rev. 
Heckwelder seems to think that there was a tribe called the 
“Talligeu.” Dr. Brinton thinks this view very likely, and 
adds : “It reduces our quest to that of a nation who call- 
ed themselves by such a name. Their ancient traditions 
assign them a residence precisely where the Delaware 
legends locate the Tallike, namely, the upper waters of 
the Ohio. Name, location, and legends, therefore, com- 
bine to identify the Cherokees or Tsalaki with the Tallike.” 
See Dr. Daniel G. Brinton’s “The Lenape and their Le- 
gends,” pp. 229-230. This author is firm in the belief that 
the word by which these mountains are now known should 
be spelled Allegheny. 


APPENDICES. 


155 


C.— THE MOUNTAIN RAILWAY. 

The Portage Road extended from Johnstown to Holli- 
daysburg, 3 6 % miles, across the Alleghenies. It consisted 
of eleven grade lines and ten inclined planes. The ascent 
eastward to the summit, 2 miles, was 1171 feet 6 inches, 
and the descent to Hollidaysburg, 10 miles, was 1399 feet. 
The heights of the ten ascents were as follows : 


Number. Length. Rise. 

Plane One, . . 1607 feet. 150 feet. 

“ Two, 1760 “ 132 “ 

“ Three, 1480 “ 130 “ 

" Four, 2195 “ 187 “ 

“ Five, 2628 “ 20: “ 

Number. SUMMIT LEVEL. Length. Descent. 

Plane Six, 2713 feet. 266 feet. 

“ Seven, 2655 “ 260 “ 

“ Eight, 3115 “ 307 “ 

“ Nine, 2720 “ 189 “ 

“ Ten, 2295 “ 180 “ 


At the head of each inclined plane were two stationary 
steam-engines of thirty-five horse-power each, which gave 
motion to the endless rope to which the cars were attached. 
Four cars, each loaded with 7000 pounds, could be drawn 
up and the same number let down at a time. Canal-boats 
were constructed in sections so that they could be placed on 
the cars. The rails of which the track was made weighed 
forty pounds per lineal yard, and were brought from Eng- 
land. They were supported on cast-iron chairs weighing 
thirteen pounds each, into which the rail was secured by an 
iron wedge. These wedges required constant attention. 
The stone blocks supporting the chairs contained three and 
a half cubic feet, and were imbedded in broken rock at a 
distance of three feet from centre to centre. The trips were 
made without time-tables, and great confusion at times was 
the consequence. 


HOTELS ATOP THE ALLEGHENIES. 


AT CRESSON SPRINGS. 

THE MOUNTAIN HOUSE, 

Owned by the Keystone Hotel Company, and managed by 
Mr. W. R. DUNHAM, 

ot the Logan House, Altoona. Accommodates one thousand 
guests. Every comfort and improvement found in the best 
modern hotel. Rates, $4 per day and upward, according to 
accommodations. It is one of the most elegant hotels in 
the world. 


THE SUMMIT HOUSE. 

Proprietor, WILLIAM LINTON. 

Dates back to the days of the Portage Road, but it has been 
constantly renewed, and now comfortably entertains seventy- 
five guests. The building stands four hundred feet higher 
than the hotels near the Pennsylvania Railroad. Open all 
the year. Rates, $2 per day ; $10 to $14 per week. 


THE DIVIDING RIDGE SPRINGS HOUSE. 

Proprietor, J. P. O’NEILL. 

It stands on the south side of the State pike, amid thirty 
acres of grassy lawn. Two hundred acres of woodland 
and meadow belong to the property. It is open all the 
year, and has ample room for one hundred and fifty people. 
Rates, $2.50 per day ; $10 to $16 per week. 


THE WILDWOOD HOTEL, 

three miles north-east from Cresson Springs station, on a 
good road leading off the Loretto road. Proprietors, H. & 
R. Himel wright. It has accommodations for seventy-five 
people, and closes about October 1st. It is a large three- 
story frame. Rates, $2.50 per day ; $12 per week. 


THE CALLAN HOUSE. 

Proprietor, JOHN H. CLARK. 

Rooms for forty guests. It was built by William Callan in 
1865, is a neat two-story frame building, always full in sum- 
mer time, and hospitable “all the year round.” Rates, $2 
a day in summer ; $10 per week. 


AT EBENSBURG. 


THE MAPLE PARK SPRINGS HOTEL, 

Proprietor, T. H. HEIST, 

stands on a commanding site west of the town. This hand- 
some four-story frame structure is open from June ist to 
October 15th. It is thoroughly heated by steam, and is 
supplied with gas, elevator, electric bells, &c. Accommo- 
dations are ample for one hundred and sixty-five guests. 
From this point drives can be made to all the neighboring 
points of interest. Rates, $3 per day ; $12.50 to $21 per 
week. 


THE MOUNTAIN HOUSE 

is in the centre of town. It is managed by D. G. Meyers & 
Brother, and has accommodations for seventy guests. Ex- 
tensive stables are attached to the hotel. Rates, $2 per 
day ; $8 to $10 per week. 


LLOYD SPRINGS HOTEL, 

along two-story frame structure at the railroad station, is 
owned by Abel Lloyd. It provides quarters for about one 
hundred guests. Several pure springs are on the grounds. 
Rates, $2 per day ; $10 per week. 


BELMONT HOTEL, 

on Horner street, fronts the valley to the south of Ebens- 
burg. Its proprietor, Lemuel Davis, usually has about one 
hundred guests in his house during the height of the season. 
It is open from June ist to October ist. There are fifty 
acres of grove about the hotel. Rates, $2 per day ; $8 to 
$14 per week. 


THE CENTRAL HOUSE, 

on the^nain street of Ebensburg, proprietor, P. F. Brown, 
has accommodations for twenty- five persons. It is open all 
the year. Rates in summer, $2 per day; $8 to $10 per 
week. 


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